THE LIBRATOR: March 2011

THE QUEST FOR DEVELOPMENT: A CASE FOR HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

MAKU A.O* and ULORI T.J**

ABSTRACT

Sustainable development has been the battle of every nation around the world; the developed and the developing, even though there are different perspectives to development, there is a general consensus that development will lead to a good change manifested in increased capacity of people to have control over material assets, intellectual resources and ideology, and obtain physical necessities of life like food, clothing, shelter, employment, etc over time. This is why some people have argued that the purpose of development is to improve peoples’ lives by expanding their choices, freedom and dignity. The belief in human capital as a necessity for growth started in Nigeria during the implementation of the 1955-60 development plan but much have not been seen in this regard, there is therefore a need to access the sensitivity and effort of our government towards our development.. Hence this paper is to examine how human capital development can engender sustainable development in a country like Nigeria.

Keywords: Human capital, Human capital development, sustainable development

*Lecturer, Department of Economics, Delta State University, P.M.B 1, Abraka, Nigeria.

**Researcher, Akin Olawore & Co, M.sc, University of Lagos, Nigeria.

INTRODUCTION

The quest for development has been the pursuit of successive administrations in Nigeria, since our attainment of independence in 1960, and we have seen various programs designed to make the country achieve this feet.

The development programs in the country include First National Development plan (1962-1968), Second National Development plan (1970-1974), Third National Development plan (1975-1980), and other policy statements, such as education for all, health for all, and housing for all by the year 2000, vision 2010, National Economic Empowerment, and Development strategy (NEEDS), the seven point agenda of the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the power-focused administration of the present Goodluck Administration. However, all of these efforts have not yielded the desired development for the country. Hence the shifting of the period within which the country is expected to achieve substantial development from 2010 to 2020, with the proposal of a new development program tagged “Vision 202020”. The Vision 202020 program is intended to achieve a level of development that would make Nigeria one the twenty most developed nations of the world. This paper will argue that development has been achieved by newly developed countries of the world today because they made human capital development their priority.

Philip Emeagwali (2003) made a bold declaration that “Knowledge is the engine that drives economic growth, and Africa cannot eliminate poverty without first increasing and nurturing its intellectual capital.”

Different drafts has been put up in terms of development programs some led by foreign direct investment, some by infrastructure but it can be argued that for Nigeria to be one of the twenty most developed nation in 2020 human capital development must be made the focal point of the development program (Essien, 2000; Ovenseri-Ogbomo, 2006; Becker, 1993; Thirlwall, 1986).

Some even stated, categorically, that any development program or effort that does not create the enabling environment for human capital development will not see the light of the day. This is because it is the human capital that would coordinate other resources to achieve development in the long-run.

The point being emphasized here is that there is a strong relationship between human capital development and real socioeconomic development anywhere in the world.

The paper is, therefore, structured as follows: first, it makes a conceptual clarification on the term human capital development and that of real socioeconomic development, although growth is not exact the same thing as development, both terms will be used interchangeably in this work. Then it presents a theoretical perspective on human capital development in other countries, followed by previous works on human capital and cursory examination of the state and human capital development in Nigeria, and finally, conclusion and recommendation on what should be done in area of human capital development to chat a path towards growth.

CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATIONS

To understand the concept of human capital development, we must first examine the term human capital and move on to its development.

Human capital has been defined in various ways. The general definition given by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (1990) is considered. The concept of human capital refers to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, physical and managerial effort required to manipulate capital, technology, and land among other things, to produce goods and services for human consumption (UNECA, 1990).

Human being is the most important asset anywhere in the world. Natural scientists opined that the human being is very unique among living things. This is because of the high level of reasoning human beings demonstrate in their relationships within their environments. This reasonableness has made men to rapidly change their living conditions and their societies; hence, many scholars view human beings as capital to organizations and nations, though this view is not without criticism. In this sense, human capital refers to the stock of productive skills and technical knowledge embodied in labour.

In view of the preceding description of human capital, one conceives human capital development as the totality of efforts or activities geared toward making the human person useful to him/herself, family, and the society at large. Harbinson and Mongers (1964) Definitional, human capital development was described as an end or objective of development. It is a way to fulfil the potential of people by enlarging their capabilities, and this necessarily implies empowerment of people, enabling them to participate actively in their own development. Human capital development is also a means since it enhances the skills, knowledge, productivity and inventiveness of people through a process of human capital formation broadly conceived. Thus, human capital development is a people centered strategy, and not goods centered or production centered strategy of development. What really matters is the empowerment of people to identify their own priorities and to implement programmes and projects of direct benefit to them. This in turn implies the active participation of people in the development process and the consequent need to construct institutions that permit and indeed encourage that participation. Human capital development involves the provision of formal and informal education that would broaden the minds of the individuals and acquaint them with various utilitarian skills to enhance their expertise in different fields of human endeavour. In addition, it has to do with the provision of quality health care delivery systems that would keep the people fit for productive functions in the economy.

Schultz (1961) in his work identified strategies for human resource development. These include the following: (i) investment in health facilities and services, broadly conceived to include all expenditure that affect the life expectancy, strength and stamina, and the vigour and vitality of the people; (ii) on-the-job training, including old-type apprenticeships organization by firms; (iii) formally organized education at the elementary, secondary and higher levels; (iv) study programme for adults that are not organized by firms, including extension programmes notably in agriculture; (v) migration of individuals and families to adjust to changing job opportunities development. In line with this, Meier (1970) opines that human resource development concerns the two-fold objective of building skills and providing productive employment for non-utilized or underutilized manpower. Both stem from investment in man in the form of education and training which are known to be institutional mechanisms for enhancing people’s knowledge, skills and capabilities.

Human Development Report (1990) argued that real development must be human centered not just in economic terms, that growth must not be ruthless, rootless, voiceless, jobless and futureless. Ruthless in the sense that when the benefits of growth accrues to the rich alone, a case where 10% of the population posses 90% of the nations’ wealth. Rootless; A growth that does not preserve our cultural values. Another is voiceless, when it fails to empower the people, women being marginalised etc. Jobless in the sense that majority of its labour force is idle and finally Futureless, when present generation squanders the resources of future generation to attain growth all these cannot be referred to as meaningful growth or real development, and thus it can be said most of these features are still very present in our nation.

THE COMPONENTS OF HUMAN CAPITAL

Economists do not always recognize the health component of human capital. Schultz (1961) saw human capital as those resources that are inherent in each human being, which can be traded between the users and the owners to improve their respective living conditions. He outlined these inherent resources in human beings to include knowledge (knowing what to do), skills (knowing how to do what is to be done), and attitude (behavioural demonstration of a favourable inclination while doing that which is to be done). No mention is made here of health. Barro (1991) carried out a study on the effects of human capital on growth. His study was based on data sets pertaining to very diverse array of countries. He used a narrow flow of human capital such as school enrolment rates at the primary and secondary level. Human capital can thus be regarded in two ways: the narrow sense which deals with just education, or the broader sense which adds health to the education component. It has become conventional to discuss human capital in its narrower sense because expenditure on education and training is capable of measurement as compared to healthcare (Jhingan 2005). Healthcare shall however be included in this study. Aigbokhan et al (2007) consider education to be a basic and obvious process by which skills, knowledge and attitude are acquired for the performance of socio-economic responsibilities, social integration, improving personal competence, and seeking better opportunities. In the words of Leeuwen (2007), ‘Human capital is implicitly referred to as formal and informal education, yet it can also contain factors such as the costs of raising children, health costs, and ability. ‘The health and education, components are recognized, although education comes ahead of health, showing the priority placed on it. In line with this, Igun (2006) defines human capital as ‘the total stock of knowledge, skills, competencies, innovative abilities possessed by the population’. These obviously have education as their bedrock. Economists have identified overtime, other components and indicators of human capital. With the two broadly accepted components, come additional factors. For example, Nakamura (1981) for pre-modern Japan defines human capital as labour and managerial skills, entrepreneurial and innovative abilities, plus physical attributes such as physical strength and skills.

THE MEASURES OF DEVELOPMENT

The concept of human development centres around the notion that human welfare depends on various dimensions, many of which are not well captured by conventional measures of economic income (see Griffin and Knight, 1990; UNDP, 1990). Particular attention has been given to using measures of health and education as welfare indicators in addition to GDP per capita. Education, good health and longevity are intrinsically valuable outputs. In conventional measures of economic output, health and education’s contribution is measured essentially by the costs of producing the outcomes, i e expenditures on schools and medical facilities. Such a procedure identifies inputs rather than outputs. The valuation of both health and education is difficult as both are goods with attributes different from most types of goods produced in an economy. Whilst high incomes may be conducive to health, health cannot be directly purchased like material goods and services. Health and education are often subsidised by the state and in some countries education is compulsory for certain minimum length of times. Many, if not most, health and education services are produced by the public sector. Governments play a direct part in providing services very directly linked to human welfare.

The UNDP has developed a composite indicator, the human development index (HDI),

which gives equal weight to three indicators: real GDP per capita (measured at purchasing power parity in constant prices); life expectancy at birth; and educational attainment, measured by adult literacy (two-thirds weight) and combined primary, secondary and tertiary enrolment ratios (one third weight) (see UNDP, 1997, p122 for details). The index is valuable in extending the economic concept of welfare, but for many purposes it is more useful to focus on the individual components of the index than the index itself. Nigeria has performed poorly over the years and very differently in each of the three dimensions of the welfare and the dimensions are not independent.

Now salient questions to ask are: Is Nigerian Spending Pattern on human development satisfactory for sustained economic and social development? Why are countries like Egypt, South Africa, Morocco, Kenya and Mauritius ranked higher than Nigeria in terms of Human Development Index (HDI)? A country that wants to become one of the 20 largest economies in the world in less than 10 years time (2020). It is indeed, quite amazing that a country like Namibia is ahead of Nigeria in the human development index 2010 ranking. (see table 1 at appendix) How do we bridge the gap between public expenditure and the growing incidence of poverty in Nigeria? With these questions at heart, it is clear that the Nigerian situation of poverty and inadequate development strategy move at variance with the Khartoum Declaration of 1988 in which Human Resource Development finds its anchor point. The declaration note inter that "human development dimension is the sine qua non of economic recovery", This human development programme, structural adjustment programme or any economic recovery effort embarked upon without attaching importance to human imperatives is but an illusion.

THE REASONS BEHIND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA AND SOME OTHER COUNTRIES

Ask any Indian mildly familiar with China: “What is the China model that made the country so successful economically?” He would most likely say it is infrastructure and foreign direct investment (FDI). This keen China observer would then likely proceed to bemoan the lack of infrastructure and FDI in India.

Did China grow because of infrastructures and FDI? One would have thought that the answer is so patently clear. The length of expressways in China is about ten times that of India’s and China now attracts about $70-80 billion in FDI each year, compared with maybe $20 billion or $30 billion dollars in India. The gap in FDI was much larger just a few years ago. In 2004, one city in China, Shanghai, absorbed $6 billion. In the same year, this was exactly the same amount of FDI India got. While explaining the growth differences between China and India by pointing to this difference in infrastructures and FDI, this Indian observer—and many others like him in India—committed a classic analytic error known as reverse causality, i.e., he thinks that it is infrastructures or FDI that caused the Chinese growth when in reality it is the growth that caused china to have infrastructure and FDI.

Let me illustrate this by posing the following question: Which country, India or China, had better infrastructure in the 1980s? I asked about the 1980s because the necessary condition to establish causality—saying something like “A causes B”—is that A has to precede B in timing. This timing precedence does not, in and of itself, establish the causal connection from A to B but without it you can safely reject the possibility that A caused B.
It turns out, as it were, that India actually held an edge over China in infrastructure. In the 1980s, China had none of the glittering infrastructure that so impresses many Indian observers who visit China today. In 1988, China had precisely 100 km of expressways.
In the absence of expressways, railways were the major transportation means and it is here that India held an edge. According to economist Angus Maddison, in 1989, India had a longer network of paved roads (1.4 million km) compared with China (862,000 km) and it had a more developed railway system.

In 1975, India, the smaller country of the two, had a railway system 60,438 km in length as compared with 46,000 km in China. As late as 1995, China still had shorter railway lines. One measure of the “quality” of the railway system is the length of electrified railways.
Here again, India held an advantage over China. In 1989, its electrified railways were 5,345-km long, as compared with only 1,700 km in the case of China.
Today, the economic performance gap between China and India is being narrowed substantially but in the 1980s there was no question that China put out a superior performance. GDP per capita averaged more than 8% a year in real terms and this compares with probably less than 3% in the case of India.

Thus, if you look at these two countries in the 1980s, there is no evidence that the country with an infrastructural edge necessarily grows faster. Many Indians do not know—or choose not to know—that much of the world-class infrastructure in China was actually built after the country had grown close to 10% for 20 years. In other words, the growth that China was able to achieve subsequently endowed the country with economic and financial resources that enabled the construction of the infrastructure. It is exactly the same story with FDI. In the 1980s, China attracted very little FDI but it was able to grow fast. After about 15 years of continuous growth foreign investors became convinced of the “China story” and began to pour money into the country. FDI is the result of the growth; it is not the reason for china’ growth.

The true success factor for Chinese growth is the huge investments made in human capital development and much of that was made in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. I am always amazed that so many Indian policy makers, business elites and intellectuals chose not to look at this aspect of China model as something India can learn from. Instead, they turn their gaze at the glittering skylines and the fancy airport in Beijing and shanghai.

There is another reason why Indians have no excuse not to realise that this is the true advantage of China. Indian economist Amartya Sen has written some of the best treatments on this topic. In his book, co-authored with Jean Dreze, India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity, he highlights a critical reason why India lagged behind China in the initial phase of economic development—India’s highly inadequate and inequitable provisions of health care and educational facilities.

The “social backwardness” of India prevented broad and effective participation in economic and political activities even when the opportunities for such participation presented themselves (as and when the country moved towards a market economy and was a democracy). For India to achieve the kind of growth that China has achieved, it has to invest more in its human capital base, especially basic education in the rural areas and especially basic education for girls. For India, this is easier said than done. The Union government has a long-term and structural deficit in its Budget and it has to pick and choose its spending priorities carefully and wisely. It is here that being a poor student of Chinese economic growth can be really harmful. The idea that China succeeded because of its infrastructures would justify a spending programme in favour of infrastructural construction rather than education. The tradeoffs are real. For a government with a chronic budget deficit, if you spend more money on airports you would spend less money on education. It is education that will pay in the long run and once India has the growth then infrastructure will be self-financed by the growth itself. India faces a tougher challenge to improve its basic education because it has historically so under-invested in it. It is also more expensive for the country because it has a larger rural population. Building schools in areas with low population densities is an expensive proposition. No doubt about it and this is why India may very well have to forgo more infrastructural investments to make up for its historical neglect. Infrastructures are not a magic bullet for China’s success and they will not be for India.

In the case of Spain, their politicians laid the ground stone for this rapid rise in human capital before the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975. The general education law of 1970 was aimed at providing a general education for all Spaniards between the age of 6 and 14. The new constitution of 1978 even included the right to education. The 1983 reform of universities introduced economic and academic autonomy for universities, while the 1990 general law on the education system raised the age limit for compulsory education from 14 to 16 years.

The university law of 2001 continued this process with a focus on improving the quality in education and research. Now Over the next 15 years, Spain is expected to generate the fastest increase in the average years of education among the rich economies. High current enrolment rates and the low level of education during the Franco dictatorship imply that new entrants into the labour market have a much higher human capital than those who exit.

Likewise South Korea, One of the most important elements contributing to the economic success of Korea over the past decades has been the rapid rise in human capital, from seven years of education in the early 1970s to around 13 years today. South Korea has given top priority to education for decades. It spends more than 8% of GDP on education and already ranks among the Top 3 in PISA (Program for International Student Assessment). The years of education will continue to rise significantly and the level will close in on that of the leading countries.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Several studies have attempted to investigate the relationship between human capital and economic growth and these studies have shown mixed results.

Amongst are Barro (1991) using school enrolment rates as proxies for human capital found that the growth rate of real per capita is positively related to initial human capital proxied by 1960 school enrolment rates. Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992), augmenting the Solow’s growth model, empirically show that the effects of saving or investment and population growth rates are biased upward whenever human capital formation is excluded. Their model explains nearly 80 percent of the cross-country variation in per capita income, which is about 30 percent larger than when human capital is excluded. For the categories of countries, (low-income, intermediate and OECD countries), investment in human capital substantially influenced per capita income at 1 percent level of significance. Similarly, Burnett et al (1995) show that massive investment in both primary and lower secondary school significantly explained the development ‘miracle’ experienced in East Asia.

There are large numbers of empirical studies that confirm the strong association between health and economic growth. For instance, Blooms and Sachs (1998), as cited in Hamoudi and Sachs (1999), provided empirical evidence on the relationship between health variables and economic growth rates and found that health variables play a significant role in determining economic growth rates. They showed this by investigating cross-country data between 1965 and 1990, using a basic growth model, and they found that an increase of life expectancy by one percent accounted for an acceleration of GDP per capita growth by over 3% per annum. In addition, health and demographic variables explained over half of the differences in growth rates between Africa and the rest of the world over that same period.

Mustafa, Abbas, & Saeed (2005) emphasized the role of human resource development and vocational training for economic growth in Pakistan. The study reviewed and analyzed the status of vocational training, related policies and practices and their impact on development of human resource. The effect of the rate and variability of increase in institutions, enrolment and teachers on output growth variability was also explored. As the fluctuations in rate and variability of vocational indicators have serious implications for the output growth variability hence, the output growth variability was regressed on the rate and variability of the institutions, enrolment, and teachers, to find out the growth and the variability impact of the vocational indicators on the output growth variability. The analysis of the impact of vocational indicators indicates that the long term planning is required to achieve the benefits of current policies. There is positive and significant relationship between the growth of institutions and output growth variability moreover; enrolment and teachers also play a significant role in determining the output growth variability. On the whole analysis shows that both the rate and variability of vocational indicators have positive and mostly significant impact on the output growth variability in the long run.

Abbas (2001) analyzed the impacts of human capital on economics growth for Pakistan and Sri lanka. The results of empirical analysis show that primary schooling enrolment rates has negative while secondary and higher schooling enrolment rates has positive and significant impact on economic growth for both countries in the sample. The study has also combined the schooling enrolment rates at different levels of education with employment to generate effective labour input that performed better as compared to simple schooling enrolment rates and it is again concluded that there are important growth effects associated with human capital.

In Nigeria, several studies have emerged in an attempt to provide quantitative evidence to the growth-human capital nexus. Akangbou (1983) and Mbanefoh (1980) determine the social and private returns to the different levels of education-primary, secondary and university, using cross-sectional data. On the basis of the positive rate of returns often computed, inference is made about the positive role of human capital on economic growth. Odusola (1998) using ordinary least square technique found that human capital, proxied by real capital and recurrent expenditure on education, is positively related to growth, although the relationship is weak.

The Nigerian Economic Society held a conference on human resource development in Africa in Nigeria in 2002 and several interesting papers were presented. Some of the papers showed a positive and significant contribution of human capital to economic growth (Adamu, 2003; Uwatt, 2003; Chete and Adeoye, 2003).

Adamu (2003) undertook an empirical investigation to determine the impact of human capital formation on economic growth in Nigeria between 1970 and 2000, using cointegration and error-correction mechanisms. The results indicate that investment in human capital in the form of education and training can lead to economic growth because of its impact on labour productivity.

Chete and Adeoye (2003) explored the association between human capital investment and economic growth in Nigeria. A number of methodological approaches were employed to examine this link. Specifically, the Granger causality tests were inconclusive on the direction of causality. The variance decomposition analysis shows that “own shocks” constitute the predominant source of variation in employment growth’s forecast errors and income growth’s forecast errors, and that innovations of employment growth can be better predictors of income growth. The impulse response analysis reveals that there are considerable oscillations in the response patterns of income and employment to unanticipated shocks in each other. The paper observed a mismatch between the manpower needs of the country and the skills turned out by the educational system.

Going by various studies one can be summarily accept that human capital development is a pre-requisite for sustainable economic development.

HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Looking at the state of human capital in Nigeria, it is quite glaring that successive Nigerian governments have not vigorously pursued human capital development and as a result, the nation has been suffering from an acute shortage of well-trained manpower.

Nigeria’s educational structure depicts the dominance of formal education and places less emphasis on vocational and other training that would impact skills in Nigeria. Consequently, the nation’s institutions of higher learning turnout thousands of liberal arts graduates annually, who are not in high demand in the nation’s labour market and beyond. The situation is worsening by low budgetary provision for education. Indeed, since independence to date, no government has budgeted 15 percent of its annual budget to education, (see table 2 appendix) let alone meeting the UNESCO minimum of 26 percent set for any nation who wants to achieve sustainable development.

Nigeria now has just 41 private universities with the inclusion of the new four approved universities (March 2011) forwarded by the honourable minister of education Hon.Rukayat Rufai for a population of over 140million people

Guardian (2007) ‘’experts on education in a seminar divulged that Nigeria is presently having the highest number of illiterates in the world. The United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director and country representative at the seminar disclosed that, “there are about 60 million adults in Nigeria, 85 percent of them under the age of 35 years, who can neither read nor write”

World Bank report in 2002, further noted that Nigeria is not committed to achieving real development because of its attitude towards human resources development. The World Bank report stated thus:

“Many developing countries have neither articulated a development strategy linking

Knowledge to economic growth nor built up their capacity to do so. Nigeria is one of these. Although it is African’s largest countries with 20 percent of the region’s population, Nigeria has only 15 scientists and engineers engaged in research and development per million persons. This compares with 168 in Brazil, 459 in China, 158 in India, and 4,103 in the United States… In 1995, Nigeria’s scientific publication was only 711, that of South Africa was 3,413, India’s was 14,883, and Brazil’s was 5,440” (Saint, W., Hartnett, T.A., and Strassner, E., 2004).

This is a very pathetic report for a country that wants to become one of the 20 largest economies in the world by 2020. As observers have noted, the twin pre-occupation of teaching and research is central to the existence of any university. If Nigeria has failed in research, there is no indication that it is doing well in teaching as well. It is, therefore, not amazing that after 50 years of oil exploration and production; Nigerians cannot carry out turn-around maintenance of our refineries, let alone build a new one. This drought of well-trained personnel is witnessed in almost every sector of the economy. Essentially, it is due to poor funding of the education sector and Research and Development (R&D) in the country.

At present, Nigeria is ranked in the category of low human development countries in the four category classification in the UN Human Development Report, namely: (1) Very high human development (ranked 1-37); (2) High human development (ranked 38-75); (3) Medium human development (ranked 76-115); and (4) Low human development (ranked 116-168). Indeed, even among the countries classified as low human development countries, Nigeria is at 142nd position. From table 1 in appendix, it is obvious that Nigeria lacks the right quality and quantity of human capital/resources for the prosecution of its development agenda and, without concerned efforts at developing the human resources of the country, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to attain the set targets in the vision 202020 programme proposal, for they will remain only a vision ( Jim-Nwoko, 2009).

It is important to note that the greatest and most valuable asset of a nation is her people. Obviously, there is no oil-well richer than the human brain. Upon the realization of this fact, some Asian countries, like China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and India, among others, laid the foundation for their growth and national development, not on natural resources, but on the human resources.

CONCLUSION

From the above discussion, it has become very clear that Nigeria’s effort at development is hampered by the non availability of human capital/resources, both in quantity and quality. These factors, obviously, would serve as a constraint to effective prosecution of the nation’s development programmes in the bid of achieving sustainable development. The poor state of the countries human capital was a result of poor funding of the education and health sectors by successive administrations since independence in 1960.our public hospital been degenerated to mere consulting centers and a sick nation productivity rate will most likely keep us below the poverty line. Upon realization that there is a positive correlation between human capital development and real socio economic development and the fact that the human brain (human resources) is more than any natural resource, most countries of the world (especially in Europe, America, and Asia), laid the foundation of their national development on their human resources. Today, these countries have achieved sustainable growth and development. The conclusion, therefore, is that, if Nigeria must attain real development, it must, of necessity, give priority attention to the development of the human beings and stop paying lip-services to human capital development.

RECOMMENDATION

Based on the conclusion that human capital development enhances economic growth, and previous findings, the following are recommended to improve the growth enhancing tendencies of human capital development in Nigeria.

First, there is a need to increase budgetary allocation to the educational sector. Government should as a matter of priority implement the minimum United Nations recommendation of 26 percent budgetary allocation to education. The donor agencies like the World Bank, UNDP, UNESCO, etc should also be encouraged to inject funds into the educational sector especially, the tertiary institutions. The government and the private sector must join hands by mobilizing resources to furnish primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions and equip them with adequate facilities, libraries, laboratory equipments, computers and modern instructional materials in order to improve the quality of education and enhance human capital development, labour productivity and ensure sustainable growth and development.

Secondly, there is need for all stakeholders, government at all levels, nongovernmental organization and the organize private sector to establish more hospitals with functioning and adequate facilities not leaving out close monitoring because of the lackadaisical attitude of some Doctors and Nurses. While these are already available, efforts should be made to make these services more affordable to the general public.

Thirdly, a government free from corruption, discontinuity and political instability is needed. If the government is transparent and morally sound, then it can rightly monitor and implement these policies for better performance of the Nigerian economy through the development of human capital.

And finally, Growth is sustainable if it is based to research and development of technology. No country that has not made significant investment in its universities and research institutions has been able to sustain growth. This is well enunciated in the NEEDS and vision 20 2020 documents. For poverty to be significantly reduced overall growth has to be value-added and productivity driven. Increasing the technological content of production while reducing dependence on nature is a key factor.

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Planning in Africa. Addis Ababa. UNECA .

Yasheng.H (2008) MIT Sloan School of Management's book ‘Capitalism with

Chinese Characteristics’, was selected by The Economist as one of the best books in 2008

World Bank. 2002. World Development Indicators. Washington, D.C.: The World Bank

APPENDIX

TABLE 1: Human Development Index (HDI) - 2010 Rankings

Very High Human Development	High Human Development	Medium Human Development	Low Human Development
1. Norway 2. Australia 3. New Zealand 4. United States 5. Ireland 6. Liechtenstein 7. Netherlands 8. Canada 9. Sweden 10. Germany 11. Japan 12. Korea (Republic of) 13. Switzerland 14. France 15. Israel 16. Finland 17. Iceland 18. Belgium 19. Denmark 20. Spain 21. Hong Kong, China (SAR) 22. Greece 23. Italy 24. Luxembourg 25. Austria 26. United Kingdom 27. Singapore 28. Czech Republic 29. Slovenia 30. Andorra 31. Slovakia 32. United Arab Emirates 33. Malta 34. Estonia 35. Cyprus 36. Hungary 37. Brunei Darussalam 38. Qatar 39. Bahrain 40. Portugal 41. Poland 42. Barbados	43. Bahamas 44. Lithuania 45. Chile 46. Argentina 47. Kuwait 48. Latvia 49. Montenegro 50. Romania 51. Croatia 52. Uruguay 53. Libyan Arab Jamahiriya 54. Panama 55. Saudi Arabia 56. Mexico 57. Malaysia 58. Bulgaria 59. Trinidad and Tobago 60. Serbia 61. Belarus 62. Costa Rica 63. Peru 64. Albania 65. Russian Federation 66. Kazakhstan 67. Azerbaijan 68. Bosnia and Herzegovina 69. Ukraine 70. Iran (Islamic Republic of) 71. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 72. Mauritius 73. Brazil 74. Georgia 75. Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of) 76. Armenia 77. Ecuador 78. Belize 79. Colombia 80. Jamaica 81. Tunisia 82. Jordan 83. Turkey 84. Algeria 85. Tonga	86. Fiji 87. Turkmenistan 88. Dominican Republic 89. China 90. El Salvador 91. Sri Lanka 92. Thailand 93. Gabon 94. Suriname 95. Bolivia (Plurinational State of) 96. Paraguay 97. Philippines 98. Botswana 99. Moldova (Republic of) 100. Mongolia 101. Egypt 102. Uzbekistan 103. Micronesia (Federated States of) 104. Guyana 105. Namibia 106. Honduras 107. Maldives 108. Indonesia 109. Kyrgyzstan 110. South Africa 111. Syrian Arab Republic 112. Tajikistan 113. Viet Nam 114. Morocco 115. Nicaragua 116. Guatemala 117. Equatorial Guinea 118. Cape Verde 119. India 120. Timor-Leste 121. Swaziland 122. Lao People's Democratic Republic 123. Solomon Islands 124. Cambodia 125. Pakistan 126. Congo 127. São Tomé and Príncipe	128. Kenya 129. Bangladesh 130. Ghana 131. Cameroon 132. Myanmar 133. Yemen 134. Benin 135. Madagascar 136. Mauritania 137. Papua New Guinea 138. Nepal 139. Togo 140. Comoros 141. Lesotho 142. Nigeria 143. Uganda 144. Senegal 145. Haiti 146. Angola 147. Djibouti 148. Tanzania (United Republic of) 149. Côte d'Ivoire 150. Zambia 151. Gambia 152. Rwanda 153. Malawi 154. Sudan 155. Afghanistan 156. Guinea 157. Ethiopia 158. Sierra Leone 159. Central African Republic 160. Mali 161. Burkina Faso 162. Liberia 163. Chad 164. Guinea-Bissau 165. Mozambique 166. Burundi 167. Niger 168. Congo (Democratic Republic of the) 169. Zimbabwe

source: Human Development Report 2010The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development.

TABLE 2: Federal Government Budgetary Allocation To Education In Nigeria, 1994 To 2008

YEAR	Total Government Budget (Trillion N)	Allocation To Education (Billion N)	Allocation To Education As % Of Total Budget
1994	0.110.5	8.655	7.83
1995	0.98.2	12.729	12.96
1996	0.124.2	15.3	12.32
1997	0.188.0	21.8	11.59
1998	0.260.0	26.7	10.27
1999	0.249	27.7	11.12
2000	0.6771.51	50.66	8.36
2001	0.894.2	62.6	7
2002	1.064	82.950	8.82
2003	1.446	78.952	11.40
2004	1.189	93.767	11.14
2008	2.870	33.6	9.64

Source: Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) (2001); Nigerian Muse (2008)

THE LIBRATOR

Thursday, 31 March 2011

WHAT GOZ AROUND COMS AROUND

Thursday, 24 March 2011

THE DON’TS OF A FIRST DATE

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Friday, 18 March 2011

THE QUEST FOR DEVELOPMENT

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