Dr Ekaete Elsie Benedict
Area of expertise: Entrepreneurship, small business management, entrepreneurship and innovation, Growth and development of SMMEs, Refugee entrepreneurship
Faculty/Department: Department of Business Management, Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences
Dr Ekaete Elsie Benedict is an academic and entrepreneur. She lectures in the Department of Business Management at the University of the Free State. She holds a BCom in Marketing (NUL, Roma); BCom (Hons) in Business Management (UFS); an MBA (MANCOSA); and a PhD in Business Management (UFS). Her teaching and research interests revolve around entrepreneurship, small business management, and entrepreneurship education.
As an academic, she is interested in applying effective teaching and learning methods in tertiary education. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in providing her students with the information, tools, and skills they need to be successful in a rapidly changing environment. It is important to her that students not only learn business and management theories, but also get the chance to practise the theories and concepts, as well as to engage with real-life business scenarios and personalities; to be not merely employees but also future employers.
As an entrepreneur, Ekaete co-founded and currently manages a successful small business, as well as a non-profit organisation. She uses her experience in the small business sector to stimulate the entrepreneurial mindset of her students and conscientise them to pursue entrepreneurial endeavours within their field of interest. Thus, combining theory and practice in her teaching and learning process. Furthermore, Ekaete actively empowers the youth in her community towards entrepreneurial activities.
Ekaete won the Top Achiever Award for Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences in 2019, and the Excellence in Learning and Teaching Award in the Innovation in Student Engagement and Learning category at the UFS in 2020. In 2021, she was selected for the two-year Teaching and Learning Fellowship Programme of the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at the UFS. Her research project for the fellowship focuses on designing an integrated curriculum for entrepreneurship studies. She has written various book chapters for academic textbooks prescribed in multiple South African tertiary institutions and universities. She has also published articles in various academic journals.
Contact Details:
Telephone: +27 51 401 9040
E-mail: BenedictE@ufs.ac.za