STAFF TRAINING AND MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT AS PARAMETERS FOR PERSONAL EFFICIENCY IN THE CIVIL SERVICES: A CASE STUDY OF MINISTRY OF EDUCATION, OYO STATE, NIGERIA.

Abstract

Despite the recognition of the importance of training by management experts and government as expressed in white papers on various reforms in Nigeria, the experience of manpower training and development in the Nigeria public service has been more of ruse and waste which informed this study which examined the perception and relevance of influence of training and manpower development on employee performance, using civil servants in Oyo State, Nigeria as reference. Descriptive research design was adopted and data was gathered from 50 respondents. Simple frequencies and percentages were utilized to analyze the gathered data. Findings revealed that 49.8% of those that had training and those exposed to manpower development had high job performance as against 21.2% for their counterparts with no training and manpower development. Also, it was discovered that the primary aim of training and manpower development was rather to meet statutory requirements (60%), as against improvement on the job (31.2%) and has policy implications for training and manpower development relevant to organizational need or goal to be provided to employees. Based on the findings, policy implications suggest that, training and manpower development relevant to organizational goals should be provided to employees and recipients provided with an enabling environment to perform tasks (the enabling environment includes opportunity to put into practice the new skill and competence they acquired; commensurate monetary reward to, perhaps, compensate them for the rigors experienced in acquiring the new skill and competence. In conclusion, this report has underscored that the aim of training and manpower development might not directly gear towards job performance. Further study is required to ascertain the conditions within which training and manpower development could improve job performance amongst civil servant