ABSTRACT
In newly independent African countries the manpower situation has four common features. Firstly, most professional and senior adminis?trative positions in the economy are held by non-nationals. Secondly, the public sector not only accounts for about half of all wage employ?ment, but also employs a very large proportion, perhaps three-quarters or more, of high level manpower (defined as those whose jobs nor?mally require a university degree or its equivalent). 1 Thirdly, while there is a shortage of high level manpower in many fields, on the whole the shortage is ‘prospective’ rather than actual, as we will argue below. But the shortage of middle-level manpower (i.e. those with a secondary education or its equivalent) is already acute and may well continue to be acute for some years to come. Lastly, the posses?sion of a secondary School Certificate neatly divides the population into two groups; the educated few with good opportunities of present employment and future advancement, and the vast majority of the semi-skilled and unskilled whose employment is stagnant or falling, whose prospects of advancement are minimal, and who are increas?ingly confined to self-employment in agriculture.
