South Africa, 25 years post-apartheid, is being challenged by unemployment, poor economic growth, political and educational instability. The unemployment figures have reached an all-time high percentage above 29%. Students at Universities of Technology have been ineffectively exposed to the concept and practices of student-centred learning as a tool towards solving real life challenges and entrepreneurial understanding. As South Africa has a unique economic structure in terms of financial and labour challenges, it is suggested that the South African education sphere embark on a tailor-made entrepreneurship education model. The aim of the study was to combine problem-based learning (PBL) and knowledge-based learning (KBL) as teaching methodologies in the design of a novel challenge-oriented teaching and learning methodology (COL) for the training of entrepreneurs at Universities of Technology. COL combines the “pillars” of PBL and “KBL” to identify, address and solve real life challenges with entrepreneurial thinking. In the COL model, the specific outcome of the pedagogic process leads the student from existing knowledge, through outcome requirement, to identifying new or inherent challenges, and finally to sourcing or researching how this challenge may be addressed or resolved. Concomitantly, knowledge deepens and widens as students build new experiences and information on existing knowledge and, by so doing, they familiarise themselves with the context and content of the challenge. The stimulus for learning or acquiring new knowledge is therefore driven by the challenge and initiated by existing knowledge. The real-world challenges are incentives and the conduit for the learning process.

Teaching entrepreneurship at Universities of Technology by using a novel pedagogic approach.

[Conference proceedings](https://vbn.aau.dk/en/publications/transforming-pbl-through-hybrid-learning-models-timely-challenges)