Across Africa and around the world, universities are facing an uncomfortable truth: traditional degree paths are no longer a guarantee of employment.
Every year in Morocco alone, more than 300,000 graduates enter a saturated job market that simply can’t absorb them all. Increasingly, our students aren’t thinking in terms of long-term careers – they’re thinking in terms of short-term projects, flexible income streams and opportunities to build something of their own.
- Ways to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset in students
- How to train entrepreneurs in five steps
- Universities as business launchpads: creating spaces for enterprise to flourish
This shift demands a radical rethink of how we approach entrepreneurial mindset in higher education. Not as a specialism for a niche group of business students but as a core competency that every student, in every discipline, can benefit from.
At my university, we’ve spent the past several years re-engineering how we embed entrepreneurship into daily student life and learning.
What we’ve learned could help other institutions, especially smaller or resource-constrained ones, adapt to this new landscape.
Why entrepreneurship needs a mainstream mindset
The first step is recognising that entrepreneurship is not only about launching start-ups for profit. It’s about nurturing a mindset that values initiative, problem-solving, resilience and creative risk-taking.
Employers increasingly want these traits, whether the student is applying for a traditional job or proposing their own venture. And in a country like Morocco, where the state and private sector struggle to create enough new jobs to match demand, supporting graduates to create their own pathways has become a necessity.
At the same time, we must confront the gap between theory and practice. Some students may have read every book on entrepreneurship and leadership but these alone won’t teach them how to build a company, adapt a product or pitch to investors.
And, let’s be honest, even the books are mostly built on business cases. So why not go straight to the source and teach entrepreneurship through lived experience?
Learning by doing
Our flagship programme for delivering entrepreneurship is called Venture Adventure Month and is held twice a year. It’s designed to move students away from theory and into action, and we start early by engaging both new undergraduates and postgraduates.
Critically, this initiative is cross-disciplinary. At a liberal arts university such as ours, where students often switch academic tracks and explore multiple interests, entrepreneurship becomes a unifying skillset.
Whether they’re studying engineering, communication or international relations, students learn to connect their passions with practical execution.
What makes Venture Adventure Month different is its structure. There are no traditional pitch competitions, no PowerPoint battles, no awards for the flashiest idea.
Instead, we build immersive, game-based sessions focused on real-world challenges. Students are coached through product development, market segmentation, pivoting, finance basics and legal set-up, all through practical activities and group simulations.
We bring in 30 to 50 seasoned entrepreneurs and professionals to work directly with more than 900 students, offering them guidance, constructive criticism and a glimpse into the realities of business beyond the university walls.
The goal isn’t to hand out money, it’s to hand out access. Our awards come in the form of mentoring sessions, introductions to networks and support in navigating the go-to-market phase. We want our students to leave with contacts, confidence and clarity, not just a cheque.
Overcoming local barriers to entrepreneurship
Despite the rising tide of entrepreneurial activity in Morocco, young founders still face significant hurdles.
Many can’t rely on family support to bankroll an idea. Most don’t have collateral or guarantors for bank loans. Venture capital is limited, especially at the seed stage, and investors remain hesitant to take risks on student-led start-ups.
We’ve responded by building what we call market bridges: partnerships that give students a route into the professional world, whether through co-incubation agreements, local enterprise networks or cross-institutional collaborations.
These bridges are especially important as students transition out of university and into early-stage ventures.
We’ve also had to address cultural mindsets. For many students and their families, entrepreneurship can seem risky or even unserious. This is why mentorship is so crucial. When students meet professionals who’ve walked the same path and succeeded, they gain advice and validation.
And when they see that their university is investing time and resources into entrepreneurial learning, they begin to see self-employment as a credible and even prestigious path.
It is interesting to notice that those who are pessimistic about entrepreneurship are often the non-entrepreneurs. In general, successful young entrepreneurs don’t speak about their success.
Sharing what works
To make sure our work doesn’t stop at the campus gates, we need to share our model with the wider higher education sector in Morocco and beyond.
That’s why we’re now collaborating with other regional universities, many of which are much larger, to synchronise programming, pool resources and co-host events. We’re also developing online tools and games that can support hybrid learning models, enabling universities without our infrastructure to benefit from our expertise.
We are now in the process of connecting with partners more widely across Africa to explore opportunities for co-designed initiatives, joint competitions and shared learning.
The future of entrepreneurship in education lies not in isolated incubators but in connected ecosystems where knowledge, support and opportunity can flow freely.
Four lessons for higher education institutions
From our journey so far, here are four practical recommendations for universities looking to improve how they embed entrepreneurship in teaching and learning:
1. Build experiences, not just courses
An entrepreneurial mindset and entrepreneurship are best learned by doing. Replace passive lectures with experiential learning, such as games, simulations and live projects, all of which challenge students to apply theory to real situations. Let them make decisions, face uncertainty and learn from their mistakes.
2. Expand access beyond business students
Make entrepreneurship available to all disciplines. Engineers, humanities students and artists all benefit from learning how to develop an idea, pitch a concept and engage with markets. Diversity fuels innovation.
3. Prioritise mentorship over money
Cash prizes are fleeting. What endures is mentorship, connection and guidance. Build a network of alumni and industry professionals who are willing to coach students over time. The value of a well-timed introduction or strategic insight often outweighs any financial award.
4. Collaborate to go further
No university can do all this alone. Partner with other institutions to share content, co-develop events and motivate external stakeholders to engage. Collaboration creates scale, visibility and legitimacy, especially when entrepreneurship is still viewed as a risky path.
A cultural shift worth making
We’ve found that when students leave our programmes, they are more empowered. They know how to turn ideas into action, navigate ambiguity and how to take initiative in shaping their future.
They also thank us for helping them meet the right person at the right time, someone who opened a door, challenged their thinking or just simply believed in them. This is the real impact of a well-embedded entrepreneurial education.
In the end, our job as educators isn’t just to pass on knowledge, it’s to equip students with the tools, confidence and mindset they need to create value in the world, on their own terms.
That means turning our campuses from lecture halls into launch pads. If we do it right, we may just launch the next generation of change-makers in the process.
Nicolas Klotz is director of entrepreneurship at Al Akhawayn University.
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