Manpower In Country Research Articles

Literature Modules in the Use of English Curriculum for Nigerian Polytechnics: Problems and Prospects

English language remains the main medium through which other courses are taught in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The inclusion of the Use of English and Communication Skills into the polytechnic curriculum for all students is to enable them acquire necessary language and communication skills. This study examined the Literature Modules in the Use of English Curriculum of Nigerian Polytechnics and other technical institutions currently in use. All students, regardless of their areas of specialization, offer the Use of English course where literature modules are included. Some academic staff members as well as students sometimes question the rationale for teaching especially the Literature modules of the Use of English syllabus. This is because they consider it as a course which plays no essential role in meeting the country's manpower need. This research work evaluated the content and relevance of the curriculum as designed by the NBTE towards meeting Nigeria's technological drive. The findings reveal that the Nigerian polytechnic learners all need to be proficient in the Use of English and communication skills to be able to perform well in their professions. The study therefore concludes that polytechnic students cannot excel in their professional conduct with just the subject knowledge of their areas of specialization. The Use of English course is therefore necessary in providing all students with the language skills to help them cope effectively with the challenges of their professions.

Productivity and Unemployment in Nigeria

Productivity and employment are issues that are central to the social and economic life of every country. The extant literature refers to productivity and unemployment as constituting a vicious circle that explains the endemic nature of poverty in developing countries. And it has been argued that continuous improvement in productivity is the surest way to breaking this vicious circle. Growth in productivity provides a significant basis for adequate supply of goods and services thereby improving the welfare of the people and enhancing social progress. As pointed out by Dernburg (1985:63), Without it there would be no growth in per capita income, and inflation control would be all the more difficult. In fact, the observation has been made that continuous enhancement of productivity has been very central to the brilliant performance of the Asian Tigers and Japan in recent years (Simbeye, 1992; World Bank 1993). Recent developments in the world economy have also shown that countries with high productivity are not only central to the determination of global balance of powers (e.g Japan and Germany), but also serve as centres of stimulus, where world resources (including labour) are redirected to, as opposed to countries with low or declining productivity. Recent studies, for example, Rensburg and Nande (1999) and Roberts and Tybout (1997) have also shown that high productivity increases competitiveness in terms of penetrating the world market. Thus, a country with high productivity is often characterized by a very high capacity utilization (optimal use of resources), high standard of living, low rate of unemployment and social progress. Unemployment, on the other hand, has been categorized as one of the serious impediments to social progress. Apart from representing a colossal waste of a country's manpower resources, it generates welfare loss in terms of lower output thereby leading to lower income and well-being (Akinboyo, 1987; and Raheem, 1993). Unemployment is a very serious issue in Africa (Vandemoortele, 1991 and Rama, 1998) and particularly in Nigeria (Oladeji, 1994 and Umo, 1996). The need to avert the negative effects of unemployment has made the tackling of unemployment problems to feature very prominently in the development objectives of many developing countries. Incidentally, most of these countries' economies are also characterized by low productivity. Thus, it seems obvious to many policy makers that there must be a straight forward connection between productivity and employment/unemployment. However, the theoretical linkage between productivity and unemployment is yet to be settled in the literature. While some researchers posit that higher productivity may increase unemployment (e.g. Diachavbre, 1991; Krugman, 1994), some others argue that it could increase employment (e.g Yesufu, 1984; Akerele, 1994; CEC, 1993).

Status of water pollution in relation to industrialization in Rajasthan.

India is a large and densely populated country; its economy is largely agricultural. Making the best use of the country's manpower has always posed a challenge. Industrialization could become a dominant component of the economy and displace agriculture. Traditional livelihoods of occupational groups are threatened by the practice of disposing untreated industrial waste into rivers and bodies of water. These uncontrolled disposals impact local natural resources with negative long-term effects. Industrialization is the development of intellectual and financial trade that changes a predominantly rustic culture into a modern one. Many industrial units discharge wastewater locally without treatment. Many industries directly discharged their waste into lakes, rivers and ocean. Water contamination impacts the environment. Pesticides, chemical, waste oil and heavy metals are regularly transported into their waters. Humans and other living organisms can accumulate heavy metals from industrial discharges in their tissues. Industrial waste may be reactive, corrosive, flammable, or toxic. When untreated sewage is emptied into rivers, it causes diseases like typhoid, dysentery and cholera. Natural elements and plant supplements like nitrate and phosphates stimulate growth of algae on the water surface. The algae reduce the oxygen in the water and cause eutrophication. It is harmful to the water ecosystem. In Rajasthan proper, there are a number of sites bordering rivers and lakes where the pace of industrialization has proceeded far beyond the ability of regulators to establish and enforce meaningful limits on the amount of point source pollution permitted to the various industrial complexes, which include cement, chemical, fertilizer, textile, mining, quarrying, dyeing and printing facilities. The scale of the problem is obvious to the casual observer, but actual documentation of the total impact remains to be done.

Cancer Screening Program Using Technology Assisted Learning

Abstract 29 There is an estimated burden of over 1 million individuals who were diagnosed with cancer in India in 2012. The three most commonly occurring cancers in India are breast, uterine cervix and oral cancers, together accounting for one third of India’s cancer burden. All three are usually detectable at early stages, and malignancies of the oral cavity and cervix have precancerous stages that are amenable to secondary prevention. Therefore, screening and early detection of these three cancers will help to markedly reduce the cancer burden in India. The technology used in this project is the ECHO (Extension for Community Health Outcomes) model of the University of New Mexico. ECHO clinics are supported by basic, widely available teleconferencing technology. It links expert specialist teams at an academic ‘hub’ with primary care clinicians in local communities – the ‘spokes’ of the model. This pilot project is being conducted at the primary health centre (PHC) Gumballi, a tribal village in Karnataka. We are incorporating cancer screening program in the existing infrastructure and manpower in-country, using the ECHO model. The Institute of Cytology and Preventive Oncology (ICPO) helps in empowering the community health workers (CHWs) at the PHC to conduct cancer screening of the population covered by the PHC. We have used two modes of training health care providers: Initial face-to-face training on cancer screening tests, allowing for hands-on training and practice of skills. ICPO staff visited Gumballi and provided 4 days of intensive training to the community health workers in screening of oral, breast and cervical cancer. Subsequently, fortnightly, ECHO clinics are being conducted to include reiteration of the training, discussing patient cases, resource sharing and expert presentations. To date, the CHWs have screened 11,342 individuals for oral, breast and cervical cancer, out of the 16,042 eligible population. The screen positives and suspicious cases are being evaluated and treated by a team of specialists from the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, Bangalore, which is a tertiary care centre for cancer treatment in that region. This pilot study proves that the cancer screening is feasible at the primary health network with the existing resources which can be replicated to the larger masses and subsequently to the whole country. AUTHORS' DISCLOSURES OF POTENTIAL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: No COIs from either author.

Cross-cultural analysis of comfort with foreign cultures in multinational firms

Hofstede (1980) contributed to the theory of cross-cultural behaviour with the four dimensions and fifth was added by a study in China. The multi country manpower metrics are influencing the variables of the existing models and also introducing new facets. Level of comfort with foreign cultures (CFC) is a new framework which attempts to read the comfort level of local employees of the country with respect to foreigners and vice versa. This paper attempts to profile the level of comfort of local employees with foreign employees in culturally diverse work places of multinational firms. This study is based on samples from ten countries using comfort with foreign cultures (CFC) questionnaire. The results indicate the nature and level of differences among nations/regions on the comfort level of local employees with foreign employees and they vary. This study also pinpoints specific differences among nations in this respect.

Foreign training and foreign assistance for university development in Kenya: Too much of a good thing?

This paper examines the role of foreign educational assistance in the development of the University of Nairobi in Kenya. Attention is drawn to the implantation of forms of self governance and of a research culture characteristic of Western universities that made fulfilment of the University's national mission to satisfy high level manpower requirements difficult, and led to conflict between the University and the government. Kenya is establishing a second university and is planning further expansion of its system of higher education despite the discouragement it has received from foreign donors. It is suggested that expansion may create a serious drain on already limited instructional and financial resources and worsen the employment prospects of graduates, but it may also produce instructional structures and programs that are more responsive to the country's manpower needs and political circumstances.

Teaching development geography: observations from the periphery

Abstract In accordance with national priorities, research and teaching at the University of Lesotho focuses heavily upon the analysis of Southern African under‐development. In the curriculum, development geography has progressed from the traditional to the radical. However, when tutors present literature negating the functionalist‐imperialist model, or encourage students to indulge in critical examination of their own society and history, they encounter considerable ideological constraints in the minds of the students. Furthermore, the value of an approach which abandons the investigation of spatial structure per se is questioned in a situation where the country's manpower demand is for technicians and not theorists.

HOW METAL BOX GOT INTO BOTTLES

Metal Box's joint venture with Japan's Toyo Glass to provide Nigeria with its own bottling plant is a good example of industrial aid to developing countries. The deal helps to reduce the strain on Nigeria's import bill, it provides work for the country's manpower skills and it has all the makings of another profitable venture for Metal Box. Ken Gooding reports.

Early Experiences of Manpower Problems in an Industrial Society at War: Great Britain, 1854-56

It is now a platitude that comprehensive manpower budgeting plays a vital role in the total war effort of any industrial society. Yet it was not until the Second World War that this was fully appreciated, even in Britain, the nation with by far the longest experience of the problems of an industrial economy geared to international trade. In the First World War bitter experience did indeed slowly compel its rudimentary enforcement, first with badges and leaving certificates for munitions workers, and finally with the prevention of those in essential occupations from enlisting for military service. Yet British ideas about the best way to meet the calls of war upon a country's manpower remained obstinately naive. Three or four generations earlier, however, in the 1854-56 war with Russia, the only European war Britain engaged in between 1815 and 1914, mid-Victorian Englishmen had already had their eyes forcibly opened to some of the novel problems which confront an industrial society at war, and a few had dimly begun to perceive their implications. In manpower, as in many other wartime concerns, the problems and expedients of twentiethcentury Englishmen at war had mid-nineteenth-century antecedents of which they knew nothing and whose very existence they did not suspect. For British experiences during the Crimean War were not simply forgotten; they were grotesquely distorted exceptionally quickly and thoroughly, and necessarily remained so as long

Relationship Between Rates of Growth of Output and Fixed Assets in Industry

Reproduction of fixed assets in Soviet industry is proceeding on an extremely large and continuously growing scale. Average annual capital investments in industry have grown from 650 million rubles in the First Five-Year Plan period to 6.7 billion rubles in the Fifth Five-Year Plan period. In the current seven-year period industrial investment will amount to an average of more than 14 billion rubles a year. In the 1959-1965 period total capital investments will exceed capital investments in all the preceding years of Soviet power. Capital construction in industry absorbs a considerable portion of the Soviet national income and of the country's manpower.

THE PAY‐ROLL SURCHARGE

WHAT EFFECT is Mr Selwyn Lloyd's suspended pay‐roll tax likely to have on apprentices and other young workers? According to a remarkable statement put out by the Industrial Training Council, it could well “affect the willingness of employers to expand training arrangements for young people and do much to undermine the council's work”. While the Council's work might be undermined, we doubt whether the pay‐roll tax would make any real difference to the expansion of facilities for training young people in industry. In the short run it might make a marginal difference. In the long term it could do nothing but good. If the Chancellor has real convictions about the way an employee surcharge could lead to more effective use of the country's manpower — by more rapid introduction of automatic and labour saving devices and, concomitantly, by provision of adequate arrangements to train and retrain the skilled workers to man them — we hope he will follow those European countries which have had a pay‐roll tax for years and where the arrangements for training apprentices are much more advanced than those in Great Britain. Why should we be afraid to follow the Continental example?