ASSURING QUALITY MANPOWER PLANNING: ACASE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA •

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DR.(MRS) A. I. FABIYI - DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONALADMINISTRATION, UNIVERSITY OFLAGOS, AKOKA- LAGOS. NIGERIA.

BEING PAPER PRESENTED

AT THE 29TH ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE - CALABAR 2005

DATE: TUESDAY 11TH - THURSDAY 13TH OCTOBER 2005.

VENUE: CHINUA ACHEBE NEW ARTS THEATREUNIVERSITY OF CALABAR, CALABAR.

NIGERIA.

Abstract

Human Resource Planning as defined by the Encyclopedia of ProfessionalManagement (1995) involves a process of forecasting future staffingrequirements, developing action plans to meet them and monitoringperformance against the plan. One of the many reasons why Humanresources or manpower is planned for education is to minimize wastage,promote efficiency and ensure that the specific number of employees neededfor the job are provided at the appropriate time. It is however worrisome tonote that several trained teachers are out there with no jobs. The politicalcronies of the system continue to employ an 'underground' system to conductemployment of manpower resources for schools. This practice throws awaymuch of the desired quality needed for planning manpower. Change in oureconomy, societal expectation and education has made case for a moresophisticated and quality planning for human resources for public schools.This paper has attempted to identify some proposals for ensuring qualityplanning. These proposals are to be adopted and adjusted locally as much asit is functionally possible.

Introduction

Planning can simply be seen as an intended action for the success of

tomorrow. Aghenta (1993) describes planning as an entity that has several

components in which experts work individually or/and collectively for the

attainment of the objectives of the plan. This concept has also been defined

by Adesina (1981) as the process of applying scientific or rational procedure

to the process of educational growth and development, so as to ensure the

efficiency and effectiveness of the educational system. Organizations are

driven by human beings who may also be referred to as Manpower or Human

Resources.

Human Resource planning as defined by the encyclopedia of professional

management (1995) involves a process of forecasting future staffing

requirement, developing action plans to meet them .and monitoring

performance against the plan. This includes a forecast of the capacities

required on a given date in the future, an inventory of current human

resources, and analysis of internal and external influences or actions that will

occur during the intervening period, a summary of the kinds of actions

required to achieve the desired capabilities, a comprehensive plan to

implement these actions and monitoring technique to ensure proper progress.

The concept of human resource planning has also been defined by Oladunni

(1998) as a system of planning, identifying and selecting the right number of

personnel with the right aptitudes, qualification and experience to successfully

complete the right training at the right time for the right job. It is said to

translate business plans into the workers required to fulfill those plans in a

timely and cost effective manner.

Ejiogu (2000) observed that human resource planning basically involves the

identification of the organizations future manpower needs; the various

manpower resources within the organization which will have to meet the

demand, ascertain the nature of the relationships between staff supply and

demand and designing ways by which surplus personnel, are reduced to

attract the much- needed personnel, bearing in mind, the general labour

market. Whenever a boss needed more hands and made arrangements for

them to be taken on, or a superintendent recognized the need for an addition

crew or shift to start the next week, crude labour force planning was taking

place.

In this present time, changes in our economy, society expectation and

educational needs has made case for a more sophisticated and quality

planning for human resources for our public schools. School population has

continuously increased over the years. Okebukola (2005) reported that with

the present population of the country which is over 120 million people,

between 80 and 100 universities will be required before year 2010. By this

time, the present one million candidates who desire places in our university

will hike in figure to about four million as consequences of the university Basic

Education bulge" in fact, the maximum enrolment for fresh students for the 74

universities in 2010 would only be about 390, 000 in the face of over four

million applicants. While the licensing of rT)ore private universities in the

country may be seen as a welcome development in some quarters some are

not positively disposed to this practice. Obe (2005) wondered where these

new universities would source their academic staff especially when existing

ones are grappling with the problem of inadequacy of staff. In order to

maintain standards/quality, he observed that the university of Lagos for

instance need 50 Ph.D holders every year. This calibre of staff usually take

long years to prepare so there is the fear that those who will teach in the new

universities would either be mediocre or part time lecturers standards may be

compromised and this of course in not good enough for the system and so

require some strategic planning of human resources to meet up demand in

number and quality.

Purpose

This paper will attempt to examine the different perceptions on the concept of

human resource planning in education. It will also examine human resource

planning as a process, highlighting the steps involved. The discussions delve

will focus on some options that are available for adoption or review for the

purpose of a functional human resource plan for public schools

Problem

There is presently a high rate of unemployment in the Nigerian society and the

school system which is part of the economy also suffer lack of teachers (in

numbers and quality) yet, there are so many teachers out there who are

unemployed.

The political cronies of the system continue to employ an 'underground'

system to conduct employment of manpower resources for schools. This

practice throws away much of the desired quality needed for planning

manpower needs. Quality in human resource planning (so that there may not

be so much wastes of human resources) for public schools.

Why Plan Educational Human Resources?

Adeogun (2005) identified some basic reasons for the planning of Human

Resources. These include the following:

(a) To ensure employee succession. This is because employees have

their own goals and makes their own decision whether to stay in an

organization or leave with regards to several reasons. If human•

resources are not well planned, it will be herculian task to readily fill a

position that may be vacant for any reason.

(b) For the provision of growth and expansion of the organization.

(c) To adapt to changes in technology and advancement and also to

changes in administrative techniques and organizational structure.

(d) It is also to minimize wastage, promote efficiency and ensure that the

specific number of employees needed for the job are made available

and placed on the right job at the appropriate time. This paper will

focus attention on this role of planning Human resources.

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Stages of Human Resource Planning:

Three stages of Human Resource planning can be identified: Job analysis is

necessarily the first step, then a fore casting of human resources supply and

demand follows. After this the matching of supply and demand and this can be

illustrated by the Human Resource Planning Model below:

Fig. 1

•..

•~ Forecast

Supply Supply Exceed demand planfor attrition, layoffretirements & terminated,

Compare forecasted supply &Supply equals demand keepforecasted demand ~•..audity the solution.

Demand exceed supply plan

Forecast Demand to recruit select train &4 develop .

Job Analysis

Adapted from TQM P.317

Job analysis procedure establishes the organizational goals to be achieved by

the human resource plan. It also summarizes the working conditions, where

the job is performed, the tools, materials and equipment used, the skills and

other credentials that are needed for the task performance. This enhances the

planners ability to forecast rightly or plan for the future use of these resource

when these requirements are set, it is then necessary to give consideration to

internal and external forces which will make the goals realistic and attainable.

This is more so when the time frame covers 3-5 years or more.

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In the event that a school may be expanding in structure, the human resource

planner is expected to begin to plan to staff the structures immediately it,

becomes functional. On the other hand, if school enrolment is been reviewed

downward, there will be less demand for employees. Demand is therefore

based on projected overall growth of the school. With the Lagos experience,

the public schools is increasing in size with the UBE policy, yet the human

resources are not been engaged/ employed in the proper procedural manner.

There is a need to match supply and demand and necessary actions taken in

response to the results. An educational planner may pick from the three

alternatives highlighted in fig 1. If the demand for staff exceeds its projected

supply then there must be a plan to employ, - recruit select, train and develop.

However if the supply exceeds the demand, there may be need to down-size-

through lay offs, termination and early retirements. In the situation where

supply balances up with demand, there is still the need to monitor the

relationship in case of a change. The global perspective of manpower

planning reveals that there seems to be a broad agreement around the world

that the human resources aspects of education need some degree of

planning. Zhou Enlai (2005) agreed that various imperfections in the economic

system and a lack of a pricing system in educational, prevents it from reaching

the point of maximum efficiency without some interferences.

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Quality Planning.

Quality means to be sure that defective products or seeds are not produced

and that design meet performance requirement. All stakeholders in the

production and utilization of teachers need to be involved in quality planning of

teacher education programmes and the utilization of these teachers. Malcolm

Frazer (Yakubu 2005) in support of this, observed that real and enduring

quality can only come by the actions of the institutions themselves- the basis

of which must be self actualization. Inspection and quality control imposed

from outside the system may not be effective. Manpower planning assumers

that since education precedes employment for the purpose of relevance the

two should be linked. Quality assurance can be conceptualized as the

deliberate effort by educational planners and managers to ascertain that

quality is upheld from the input state through processing, to the output stage.

Proposals for Assuring Quality Planning

There is a need for rational educational planning to enhance quality of the

planning that is done. Burach (1983) reported that one economist suggested

that manpower planning is useful for developing countries because it can

straighten out manpower and educational bottle necks that result form rapid

economic growth and educational expansion. Education should therefore be

in line with societal needs.

Surpluses of teachers at different levels in Nigeria points to the need for more

effective communication on a national level regarding future requirement.

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Education officers could visit schools to give relevant information to secondary

schools in order to prepare them early for future career.

Strategic planning can be done. According to Ajayi (2002) strategic planning

can be seen as a process that include a set of interactive and over lapping

decisions leading to the development of an effective strategy for a given

system. The strategist needs to seek to, first of all, understand the position of

the unemployed teachers out there. Since strategic planning also involves a

strategic choice stage where the formulation of possible courses of action and

their evaluation are made, the strategist can choose the most relevant. Lerner

(1999) supports this. The issue of strategy should be based on target setting

and expectation. There is a need to continue to reset its targets until it is

properly implemented.

Analysis of Internal and External Factors. After, future requirements and

current resources have been established, some factors that may influence or

impact on this plan are retirements, layoffs termination of appointment transfer

and promotion. Such losses may provide opportunity for re-assignment and

transfer and that will assist in the plan's effective operation. It is interesting to•

note that relocation of some employees may not be welcomed by them.

Education and job assignment have not been properly coordinated. The China

experience can be borrowed. Here the ministry of education takes charge of

both manpower training (education) and jot!> assignment. They were also

made responsible for work transfers and giving of information on graduates to

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the Planning Committee (PC). The following procedural steps may be

considered:

Ministry of Education (MaE) gives students application forms to fill in

three to five desires about their future jobs. At the same time the PC

determines, the needs for graduates.

The PC balances supply and need, based on this information. It then,

advices a draft allocation plan and consults all other ministries.

The MaE implements the plan and within 12 months of allocation,

any mismatches are to be adjusted by the ministry education .This

approach to planning human resources may be applied as much as

possible to the local context of the Nigeria situation.

An experiment was also reportedly carried out by the shanghai Jiaotong

University on planning human resources. The experiments which called for a

greater role for schools, allowed students and work un'tsto contact each other

in a demand - meet - supply arrangement, After five years in the experiment,

Shanghai Jiaotong reported the results highlighted below.

Table 1

Sources of Engagement Numbers Engaged.

To continue post graduate school

Recommended to job by school

Hired through recruit

Jobs through teachers Parent, self

Others (return to home area no jobs

300

200

700

400

100

From the table, an average of 1,700 graduate over five years period shows

less than one percent unemployed graduates in China. One might argue that

many economic reasons may explain their success story. All the same a

systematic approach has been used to achieve the results. This approach can

be adjusted in the Nigerian context.

Zhon Enlai (2005) observed that the major approaches to educational

planning (manpower planning model or manpower requirements model, social

demand (or demand for - education and rate of return 'have been found to

have limitations both theoretical and practical. It is proposed that educational

planners should therefore agree on a synthetic model that include all three•theories.

Conclusion

This paper has identified human resource planning as a process that can be

described as having many parts and steps. It is observed that different

perception on the concept has agreed to a rational or scientific procedure for

its operations. The practice of employing only very few teachers through the

backdoor while the public schools remain starve of the needed human

resource is particularly worrisome.

It is characteristic of an effective human resources plan to include a

mechanism for periodic monitoring and review so as to adjust for changes in

policy and enhance objective realization. For quality assurance, a number of

proposals have been made in this paper. It is hoped that there would be

adopted and adjusted locally to effect a correction of the arbitrary and irregular

employment of teachers for the public schools.

n

References

Ajayi, T. (2005) An Overview of strategic planning process: implications forplanning in the Ministries of education in managing the Educationsystem: A book in honour of Prof. O. E. M. Fogbamiye. Triumph-Providential Publishers.

Burach, Elmer. H (1983). Planning for Human Resource Brace Park Press.Chicago.

Ejiogu, Aloy (200) Human Resoruces management: Towards createrProductivity. Generation Press. Lagos.

Encycloyedia of Professional Management, Vol 1 Bittel Ramsey. FourthGrolier Printing 1995.

Lerner, A. L. (1999) Strategic Planning essays (Unpublishd Manuscript).Northridge: California State University

Nuru Yakubu (2005) Accrditation and Quality Assurance in NigeriaPolytechnics-Being Paper presented at the workshop on QualityAssurance and academic standards Management in Nigeria and the U.K. Organized by the British Coway, Nigeria in collaboration with PanAfrican University Lekki. In Sheraton Hotel Towers Lagos th_18th march2005.

Okebukola P. (2005) Nigeria will have 100 Universities in 2007. TheNigerian Education Times No 4 Feb-March 2005.

Oladunni, S. A. (1998) Issues in corporate and Human ResourcesManagement in the Oil Industry: A Collection of Essays. PublishingResources Ltd.

Zhon Enlai (2005) Graduate Employment: from Planning to the marketEconomy http:/www.desycajstate.edy/processmodel.html.