Adult Education for Effective Resource Management in the Multi-ethnic Nigerian Environment

Abstract

AbstractResources may be defined as factors of production. The objective of any production effort is to either manufacture a good, or render a service, essentially needed by someone else. In order to produce, management, which is the art of; planning, or organizing, directing, controlling and coordinating resources, must be involved. Resources refer to the 5Ms of management; namely; men/women, money, machines, materials and methods. Effective resource management therefore, requires the appropriate management of the 5Ms, so as to achieve desired goals. In resource management, human resource is seen as very important. We may have money, sophisticated machinery, high quality materials, land with most precious minerals, unless we have the right quantity and quality of human resources, (obtained through adult education) real development and progress will be impossible to attain. Adult education uses initial skills and updates knowledge to enable the product to become a more dynamic vessel and instrument as far as human resource development is concerned. Human resource development is the totality of the effort and cost involved in the massive upgrading of productive capacity of people through skills training and retaining for adaptation relevant in one’s task. In Nigeria, with its population of about 150 million people, made up of over 350 ethnic groups, it could be impossible to manage such people without adult education, since we must feel concerned about how; we treat them, use them in terms of functions assigned and how we train them to perform such functions. Consequently, the focus of this paper was to describe and recommend some conceptual and practical methods relevant in the management of human resources in the multi-ethnic Nigerian environment. The approach which is recommended, would among others gains, reduce unemployment and related social vices which have been obstacles to real development in Nigeria.