Abstract South Africa faces the persistent challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality, which endanger societal stability. Despite policy efforts, entrepreneurship and the small, medium and micro enterprise (SMME) sector have not yet created a sufficiently enabling environment and many businesses struggle to survive due to challenges like limited access to finance, market access, regulatory burdens, or lack of business skills. The SMME sector may not be contributing as effectively to job creation and economic growth as it could. According to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor research, South Africa's most significant obstacle remains a lack of general education and training. Enhancing the overall standard of education and training while promoting entrepreneurship has become imperative for decades. Thirty years into a new democracy, the support of government policies and activities and the concept of entrepreneurship and the SMME sector has yet to generate an enabling environment that alleviates poverty, unemployment and inequality in South Africa. Higher education institutions have a critical role to play in addressing these challenges through entrepreneurship education. Unfortunately, to date, this sector has not made a sufficiently significant contribution to tackling these social ills. Numerous factors, such as culture, leadership, support and resources and curriculum rigidities, contribute to this failure. Higher education institutions must cultivate a greater number of entrepreneurial and innovative minds. In addition to identifying the inhibitors of success, this study suggests a conceptual framework with recommendations that contextualise the required entrepreneurship education ecosystem. This article presents a conceptual framework tailored to the South African context, identifies key barriers, and offers recommendations to enhance the entrepreneurial orientation of higher education institutions.