If education must make meaningful impact on the nation’s socio-economic vision, human capital development must be embraced

‘Step Change’ needed for Human Capital Development
Tuesday, 13 October 2009 01:19 PHILIP OKAFOR

If education must make meaningful impact on the nation’s socio-economic vision, human capital development must be embraced, writes PHILIP OKAFOR.
Sound education remains an important, immortal legacy. Education, according to experts, is the only thing that can propel a country, any social living entity forward. This premise means that sustainable education is not just any education but education in terms of the growth of the economy. It means that you look at a country’s need and then target different types of education, training and development towards those needs, says Fakunle Odifa, Country director (Nigeria) for LeadMode Consult Limited, a leading provider of accredited flexible learning, management training and development pathways to individuals and organisations.Comparing the emerging economies such as China, Malaysia and Singapore to Nigeria’s in terms of how sustainable and quality education have boosted their human capital development, a sordid picture of the poor state of our educational system where it has become apparent that our graduates are not being taught anything that is sustainable to enable them to be competitive in the world, will vividly be painted.Odifa, a doctorate degree holder in Economics from University of Leicester, UK, says the level of Nigeria’s human capital development in terms of its economic goals is reflective of the country’s educational system. He calls for planning of Nigerian educational system towards its national needs.“The United States, UK, the Chinese, Indians and all other Asian Tigers, they all have one thing n common. They look at their national needs and plan the educational systems towards their needs. That is what they do. Until Nigerians sit down and say where they want this nation to be in 2020 and how to get there, then they can plan the education system appropriately”, he posits.Stressing further, he says: “if you want to be leader in a particular aspect then focus on that one thing and craft your resources and target towards that. For instance, to be the best in oil and gas sector, you will have to develop your curriculum to suit the oil and gas sector. If you want to be the best in engineering, you will then have to craft your educational needs to develop competence in engineering. This applies to ICT, the arts etc. All this must be in line with international standards. His exposition elicits a probable link between human capital development and the educational investment in an economy.For Odifa, there must be a coordinated campaign to utilise Nigeria’s wealth of human resources for the altruistic benefit of the country.Muritala Awodun, a lecturer in the department of Business Administration and Management Technology, Lagos State University, who is also the managing editor of Management Review Limited, publishers of Lagos Organisation Review, agrees wholly with Odifa’s position.He believes there is no one best way to solve the challenge but to always learn from those that are doing it well.According to him, if we take our university for instance, most of the professors were trained abroad at the expense of the nation, that is, through scholarships. But the country has not really benefited from the investment in them.Perhaps, if there is one voice that truly captures the present state of Nigeria’s human capital development, it is that of the incumbent head of department, Industrial Relations and Personnel Management, University of Lagos, Isaac Sola Fajana.Fajana traces the human capital development challenge to the criminal neglect of government concerning its promises to the citizens in the areas of investment in education, which, he says, has remained largely undelivered on account of primitive expressions of greed by the political elites.Like Odifa, the labour and human relations expert is also of the opinion that the country’s inability to identify the pressing needs of the nation for human capital investments has contributed largely to the present state of affair.“Today, the US has identified the need for nurses and care-givers for the elderly on account of an ageing population. Strategically, they have provided for the needs that would become very predominant in the next 50 years for this class of professionals and have made strategical moves to fill the gaps. The adopted strategy is to increase pay and improve working conditions for nurses at parity with those of medical doctors and thereby make nursing very attractive, increase the future supply of professionals into that function in the future and secure the future of the elderly ones. In Nigeria, we do not even know our population, we are unble to determine what group of the society to plan for and have resigned to planning for the use of human resource by guesswork, intuition and other unscientific approaches”, Fajana observes.For Akin Oyebode, a Law professor and international jurist, and current head of department of Law and Jurisprudence, University of Lagos, the recent decision by the federal government to allocate N100 billion for human capital development in the country should be seen for what it is: a mere drop in the bucket in the face of the task at hand.Apparently not too pleased with government allocation, Oyebode says: “The federal minister of education recognises that to have a world class product, you must have world class production and that cannot happen without world class students and institutions. This, needless to say, requires a huge capital outlay instead of the band-aid that is being offered.Although, Toki Abiodun, chief executive of Tom Associates, like others views believes that the genesis of the present human capital challenge is huge, he specifically points to the current curriculum used in tertiary institutions, noting that it fails to really meet the expectations of contemporary business world.Gleaning issue from the broader perspective, especially from world of work environment, he queries: “Do the people we have to manage business, governance have the knowledge and skills hat is needed contemporarily”?. Though Toki believes the role technology advancement can be bring to the table in terms of socio-economic development, his argument however tilts towards a people-centric exponent. His belief in the development of people as the basic driver of any endeavour is total.His words: “It i being said that technology will help. Yes, it will to an extent, but I have not seen where technology takes over human business and if this country, industries and government will move forward, we have to be developing people who will take over and meet contemporary needs”.The role of government and organised private sectorTo achieve remarkable success in the quest to improve human capital challenge in the country, there is a role for everybody in this crusade. This is because success is bridging the knowledge gap, sustainable knowledge-gap in order to avoid poverty trap, says Odifa.In ensuring that the God-given natural and human resources do not fritter away, Odifa advises: “Go to Kano, Kaduna, Lagos, Abuja and our cities you will see human capital promoting products from other countries-(selling products other countries have produced). And you know what, Nigerians are good at marketing. They will market even the most useless products from China, Taiwan or from anywhere in the world. Nigerians will sell it on the streets but they cannot sell the product that is made in Nigeria. So what we are doing is that, those huge human capitals that should be in school, we are wasting to promote other people’s market. Nigerians, the government, third sector and the organised private professionals can divert these human capitals into something more productive rather than promoting other people’s products. So the roles must be seen beyond policy and programmes. There must be a coordinated campaign to utilise this wealth of human resources for the benefit of our country”.