Education and human resources development in Africa : the Nigerian prognosis

The significance of education to human resources development cannot be overemphasised considering that dynamic workforce is an important element of economic growth and national development. In the absence of qualitative education, human and physical resources are likely to remain largely undeveloped and useless. The paper examines the connection between education and human resources development in Nigeria and its implication for national development. Using a qualitative method, the paper presented the argument that the poor quality of education has been responsible for the low human resources development in Nigeria. The study traces the factors responsible to include inadequate funding, inconsistent policy framework, long years of military regime and authoritarianism, poor infrastructural development and brain drain among others. Consequently, the paper suggests that there is an urgent need for improvement in the quality of education to ensure functional, innovative, skill acquisition and entrepreneurial capacity central to human resources development for national development in Nigeria.