Factors influencing academic resilience of trainees in entrepreneurial development programmes: A case from Saldanha Bay Municipal Area in South Africa

High dropout and attrition rates experienced in entrepreneurial training programmes are of great concern to all stakeholders given the importance of entrepreneurship in the South African economy. This study explores the issue of academic resilience as a key area of intervention to ensure a more resilient mindset of trainees, and higher retention and throughput rates in entrepreneurial training programmes. The study aims to assess, in particular, the personal and training contextual factors, perceived by trainees to influence their academic resilience in the New Venture Creation (NVC) training programme. It seeks to identify these factors using graduates from an NVC training programme in the Saldanha Bay Municipal Area. A case study approach is adopted to establish the extent of the influence of these factors on trainees' academic resilience. A focus group session is conducted to corroborate and validate the findings resulting from the case study research. The findings of the research show that personal and training contextual factors do influence the academic resilience of trainees in an NVC training programme. They also show that these factors have huge implications for facilitation, particularly on a pedagogical level.