Every year, thousands of young people enter our universities with ideas, ambition and an appetite to solve problems.

Some will build businesses. Others will develop technologies, create social value or find opportunities where others see constraints. Some will become employers and innovators in an economy that urgently needs both.

Our responsibility in higher education is increasingly clear. Universities must do more than prepare students to participate in the economy; they must equip them to help shape it. Across South Africa’s higher education system, that shift is already under way.

written by Sowetan.