From Learning Extraction to a Self-Sustaining Learning System: Design Principles for Mutually Beneficial Experiential Social Entrepreneurship Education

Experiential Social Entrepreneurship Education (SEE) programs routinely subordinate social entrepreneurs’ value drivers and development needs to student learning outcomes, a design flaw this study terms learning extraction. Design-based research across five cycles (2022–2025) of a learning-embedded consulting project in Cape Town, South Africa, analysed through Kania, Kramer, and Senge’s (2018) systems change framework, yields three transferable design principles: understanding social entrepreneurs’ relational value drivers; shifting educator mental models towards the social entrepreneur as a valued actors; and reframing resource flows from recruitment towards learning and community development. These produce conditions for a self-sustaining learning system: social entrepreneurs return, refer others, and invest.