The Orderly Entrepreneur: Youth, Education, and Governance in Rwanda

The first generation of children born after Rwanda's 1994 genocide is just now reaching maturity, setting aside their school uniforms to take up adult roles in Rwandan society and the economy. At the same time, Rwanda's post-war government has begun to shrug off international aid as it pursues an increasingly independent path of business-friendly yet strongly state-regulated social and economic development. The Orderly Entrepreneur tells the story of a new Rwanda now at the vanguard among developing countries, emulating the policies of Singapore, Korea, and China, and devoutly committed to entrepreneurship as a beacon for 21st century economic growth.

Drawing on ethnographic research with nearly 500 participants, The Orderly Entrepreneur investigates the impact and reception of the Rwandan government's multiyear entrepreneurship curriculum, first implemented in 2007 as required learning in all secondary schools. As Honeyman shows, entrepreneurship is more than a benign buzzword or hopeful panacea for economic development, but a complex ideal with unique meanings across Rwandan society. She reveals how curriculum developers, teachers, and students all brought their own interpretations and influence to the new entrepreneurship curriculum, exposing how even a carefully engineered project of social transformation can be full of indeterminacies and surprising twists every step of the way.