Human Factor Engineering and the Political Economy of African Development

Education and training are important in nation building and development. Properly articulated, implemented, and operated, educational and training programs can help develop the necessary human qualities and skills required for economic development. Although many African countries have paid a great deal of attention to and invested significant resources in these programs, they have been unsuccessful in developing the caliber of people needed. This failure is due to the fact that the programs pursued have focussed primarily on human capital acquisitions. Yet with human factor, human capital alone is not sufficient to make development happen. This work is an exploration of the reasons for the failure, and it discusses how African countries can develop the type of labor force needed to initiate and manage the development process.