ABSTRACT
It is now regarded as self-evident that a country's economic prosperity-depends not only on the supply of natural resources and the amount and utilization of physical capital, but on the education, training and productive skills of its workers. The interdependence between the supply of qualified manpower and the rate of economic growth is universally recognized, and this recognition, together with the world-wide emphasis now given to maximizing economic growth as one of the main, if not the main objective of government policy, explains the recent popularity of what is often called the ‘manpower forecasting approach to educational planning’. Basically, this approach rests on the attempts of economists or statisticians to forecast the future demand, or needs, of the economy for qualified manpower, and the attempts of educational policy makers to gear the development of the educational system to future trends in employment and economic needs.
