Nigeria’s High-level manpower: 1963-70
Date
1964
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Abstract
Planning and Coverage; Demand for High-Level Manpower 1963; Future Manpower Needs; High-Level Manpower-in-Training; Teaching and Research Staff Requirements; Appraisal.
Description
The National Manpower Board at its first meeting in December, 1962 considered a report of the Secretary on the Manpower Situation in Nigeria which outlined some of the major manpower problems with which the Federation was confronted.1 It was emphasized that, as in other developing countries manpower planning, training and effective utilization must receive continuous consideration to ensure rapid economic progress. This was especially the case in Nigeria which, while facing growing problems of unemployment and underemployment, suffered from an acute shortage of many of the technical and scientific skills which are vital to the establishment and success of a modern economy. While, therefore, an essential aim of planning must be to create additional employment opportunities, it was vital to ensure that the right numbers of persons with the right qualifications would be available to permit the implementation of the development programmes of the Governments and to meet the needs of private industry. The magnitude of the problem was obvious. But if effective action was to be taken, it was necessary to provide the details upon which effective planning could be based. Yet there was a great deficiency in much of the basic statistics which were necessary for efficient manpower planning, forecasting and budgeting—such as population figures, studies of employment trends, terms of trade, labour productivity, out-turn of educational and training institutions, etc. Some effort had been made recently to conduct enquiries and collect related statistics. These included the annual Employment and Earnings Returns of the Federal Ministry of Labour, and various studies sponsored by the Nigeria Employers Consultative Association, the International Labour Organization, etc