A Transformative Social Justice and Human Rights Leadership Approach for Entrepreneurship Education in Public Secondary Schools
Keywords:
CAPS; Critical Pedagogy; Entrepreneurship Education; Human Rights; Social Justice; Transformative LeadershipAbstract
Recently, Entrepreneurship Education (EE) emerged as a mechanism for mitigating youth unemployment and promoting economic inclusivity in post-apartheid South Africa. However, the current approach on the delivery of EE perpetuates capital-gain over societal benefits, leaving its potential contribution toward transformative social justice underexplored. This conceptual study investigates how transformative social justice leadership principles can be operationalised in entrepreneurship education in a humane way to redress the historical inequities and promote socioeconomic transformation in South Africa. Guided by the critical pedagogy theory, we applied a qualitative policy document analysis to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the country’s Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for secondary school Economic and Management Sciences. The paper adopts a qualitative research approach, Conceptual Research Design (CRD) and Policy Document Analysis (PDA) to comprehend meanings in the selected policy texts. The findings reveal two interlinked dimensions. First, UDHR Articles 3, 23 and 25, focus on dignity, work and social security, as well as the insight offers normative guidance for embedding rights-based content in entrepreneurship curricula. Second, CAPS provides entry points for aligning entrepreneurial skills with ethical and socially responsible practices. In addition, the findings exemplify the role of teachers as transformative leaders who can mediate this alignment not only by delivering technical content, but also by fostering critical consciousness and value-driven innovation. The study proposes a framework for integrating socially just human rights leadership practices into entrepreneurship teaching and offers curriculum-level recommendations.
https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.25.4.17
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