‘Nigeria needs manpower development to improve productivity’

Acting Director-General of the Centre for Management Development (CND) Biturus Chinoko has said Nigeria needs manpower development to improve productivity in the public and private sector.

He spoke yesterday at the 25th Annual Conference of Heads of Training and Development in Nigeria’s Public and Private Organisations, organised by CMD. The theme was: “Emerging Trends in Learning and Development”.

According to Chinoko, the training was to develop manpower capacity for enhanced performance and improved productivity.

Chinoko, who was represented by his Director, Training and Research, Bode Newo, said the theme was borne out of the understanding that the current dynamic business environment poses a challenge for professionals vested with the responsibility of managing the human capital.

He said: “We expect that the outcome of this conference will help in positioning the organisations represented on this conference to be at their best and compete favorably in their industry, using their human capital. This will enable participants evolve shared values, particularly in the management of training and development, which helps the professionals respond appropriately to the emerging trends in the industry.

“We need to reinvent our offerings by developing a vision for managing the learning and development functions that are alighted, economical, flexible, engaging and powerful in terms of the results it achieves.”

Director General, Nigeria Institute of Social and Economic Research Dr. Folarin Gbadebo stressed the need for tertiary institutions to develop the curriculum to be industry-led to enable graduates to be employable and have relevant skills to match up with what the companies are out for.

“We need to move to more merit-based system where there are equal opportunities for all to thrive. The government has a major role to play to achieve this because we are a public sector-led society. The government must hire the best, and when this begins from government,

other sectors will follow.

“The universities and training institutions must learn to adapt to what the workforce needs. The standards of organisation will continue to rise so institutions must teach the students what the organisations need. The academic curriculum must be industry-led and they must reframe their training to be what the industry needs,” he said.