Discussion
The global competitiveness is nothing but an economic knowledge field that analyzes the policies and facts which helps to shape a nation’s ability to initiate and retain an atmosphere that sustains more value creation for its organizations and more prosperity for the people of the country. The World Economic Forum describes that global competitiveness is the ability of a particular country to attain high rates of sustained growth in the GDP (gross domestic product) per capita (Comin, 2017). There are so many factors that affect the global competitiveness of a country and the government is the most important factor. Among other factors that determine the economic condition of a country, the trade wars between nations, rise of inflations on goods and commodities have great impact on the global businesses.
The inflation issues and the unexpected drops in the currencies subsequently affect people around the world. However, there are some efficiency enhancing factors too by which countries can sustain such sudden turmoil. The present report will deal with the chosen country Nigeria and evaluate the three efficiency enhancing factors such as higher education and training, technological readiness and market size. The report will further provide detailed description on how these factors can enhance Nigeria ‘s competitiveness and conclude by giving a recommendation for the issues.
In the African continent, Nigeria is the 14th largest country with a population of 189 million people and is the home to more than 250 ethnic groups. The country is famous for the cultural diversity it possesses. In the year 1999, a successful presidential election ushered in a period of relative stability. This greatly influenced the political condition of the country and between the years 2003 -2004, brought economic dividends (Schaltegger & Wagner,2017). However, this robust development in the democracy have not resolved all the problems of the nation. There is a recent fall in the price of oil and has resulted in a recession. On the other hand, a terrorist insurgency has destabilized the northern stares of the country by Boko Haram (Sulaiman, 2018). Above all, the country of Nigeria is known for the resiliency it holds and putting effort to reduce these troubles.
The world economy is going through many issues and contrary circumstances. It highly requires a string and effective economic overhauling. There are many issues starting with the trade wars among nations, high rise of inflations on the goods and essential commodities have greater impact on the world economy and global business. Apart from these, the Big data and easy access to the social media has given rise to the privacy problems among the users and business organizations (Etuk, Etuk & Michael,2014). Moreover, the cyber security attacks are increasing and supporting the cyber criminals or the hackers to disrupt the banks business and economic growth worldwide. The wars in nations also have remarkable effect on the country economy as the government faces difficulty in bearing the costs wars incur for the country.
Factors that enhance the competitiveness of a country
It has been found that there are so many determinants that drive the productivity and competitiveness of a country. It has taken long years to understand for the economists, the factors behind these process. The theories range from Adam Smith’s focus on the specialization and the division of labor to the neoclassical economists’ emphasis on the investment in infrastructure and physical capital. Also, in the recent years, other mechanisms such as ethical practice and education in the dealings with the government and other firms has been considered as enhancers of competitiveness of a country. One of the most effective factor is higher education and training. It has been suggested that quality in higher education and training is extremely crucial for the economy of a country. It strengthens the country which wants to move up the value chain above the simple products as well as the production process.
Higher education and training: It is well-known that today’s globalizing economy needs the countries to nourish and nurture pools of well –educated workers who are capable of adapting the changing environment quickly and stay firm at the evolving needs of the production system. Higher education and training is one of the strongest pillars that can easily measure the secondary and tertiary rates of enrollment and at the same time the business community evaluates the quality of education. The employee training is at the same time important and needs to be taken into consideration. The on-job training and also the vocational training is neglected in many countries or economies. It should not be neglected ant more as it ensures a constant upgradation of the workers’ skills.
Technological readiness: The next pillar or the second efficiency enhancer is the technological readiness of a country. In the globalized world of today, technology is highly essential for the firms in order to prosper and compete. This pillar measures the enthusiasm and energy with which an economy adopts the contemporary technologies to increase the productivity of its business so that it can gain the competitive advantage from the other countries. It also evaluates how much a country can emphasize few of its capacities in order to leverage the ICT of the country or the information and communication technologies in the daily operations supportive of production multiplication and heightened efficiency(Asiyai,2015). The ICT usage and access are the key factors that enable a country to technological readiness and wide infrastructure. It does not matter whether a technology used in the country has or has not developed. The main concerning factor is that, the country needs to have the access to modernized and advanced technical products and the knowledge and capability to use them. The FDI, plays a key role among the foreign technological sources. It has to be noted that in this context, is has to be distinguished that how is the level of technological availability is a given country. This is because, this factor determines the country’s ability to innovate and expand the knowledge.
Nigeria: Country Overview
Market size: The third pillar is the market size of a given country. The productivity of a country gets affected by the size of the market because the large markets allow the companies to destroy the economies of scale. It is quite traditional that the national borders constrain the market availability to the firms. This is the age of globalization and the international markets have become a replacement for the domestic markets and it happens more in the small countries. A vast empirical evidence show that the trade openness associated with growth in positive terms. There is also a general sense that the growth of a country is positively affected by trade and it happens more in the countries with limited domestic market (Rafindadi & Yusof, 2015). Therefore, it can be said that the exports are a substitute for the domestic demand of a country that highly determines that market size and the form size of a nation. In this context, it can be said that by the inclusion of both the foreign and domestic market in the measure of market size, credit must be given to the export –driven economies and the geographic areas too which are divided between many countries having a single common market.
Since the quality of education in a country is one of the primary key for national development, in case of Nigeria it seems to be not fared well. The country is confronting challenges in this sector. It has to be sad that the quality and standard of education in Nigeria has witnessed a geometric drop and it is highly unfortunate that the students are migrating to other parts of the world searching for quality education. The reasons behind the fall of its standards are poor funding, bad governance, low university admission capacity, academic fraud, indiscipline and corruption, politicization of education and many others.
The score of below 50 highlights that Nigeria has recorded the lowest scorer under the ICT adoption and capacity for innovation. However, it is also true that the country of Nigeria holds the largest score in the ‘Market Size’. The labor market of Nigeria is also large. This is an advantage for the country that has held the nation firmly, although there is serious need of other fields to be upgraded. Apart from these, the country has a poor technological hold and it is not harnessing latest technologies and implementing those in order to increase the productivity of the country. The low rates of ICT penetration reflect the condition well (Weforum.org, 2018).
Higher education and training
Hence, after reviewing the efficiency enhancing factors that are crucial for a country in terms of economic stability and global competitiveness, it is recommended that –
- The education system can be improved by the commensurate funding system up to 99%. However, it might take a long period since this sector has suffered from a long period.
- An increase in the salary structure can attract teachers who are intelligent and qualified at the same time. This would improve the quality of the students too.
- An upgradation in the infrastructure including labs, hostels, workshops, libraries will make the environment conducive to learning. The teachers’ training also has to be present to make good teachers in future.
- The subject English has to be given extra importance in all standards because that is the language of instruction in Nigeria. Without a good hold over this language, the students might face difficulty to understand other subjects.
- The government support is the most necessary and the government must monitor the activities of the education and training sector to ensure that everything is going as planned.
- Restating what the United States specified, there must be minimum of 26 % of a country’s budget dedicated to the educational upliftment of the country to see significant improvement (Fafunwa, 2018).
- A restructure in the educational system to provide information and communication technology (ICT), to students via trainings can change the scenario. A strong financial support for innovation centers that incubates the business ideas is also necessary.
- The government needs to focus on the human capital investment so that Nigeria’s competitiveness can be improved.
- The country essentially needs to invest in the quality of education that will drive the workforce with the necessary requisite skills for the 4thindustrial revolution named as the ‘digital revolution’.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that a country’s competitiveness is determined by so many factors among which the selected three efficiency enhancing factors play the key roles. The report has started by giving a brief introduction of factors that negatively impact a country ‘s competitiveness such as the trade wars between nations, rise of inflations on goods and commodities, exchange rates, corruption in the cyber world, national wars and many others. These factors waver the economic stability of a country and at the same time segregate the country as backward. However, there are few field focusing on which a country can sustain the turmoil and retain the positive position in the world rank. The report has evaluated the importance of higher education, technological readiness and market size which contribute to the well-being of a society or country. It has been found as per the records of Global Competitive report, that although comparatively strong in the market size, the country is extremely poor in terms of education and technological readiness. Lastly, the report has recommended the future actions for the country that can enhance its competitiveness and sustainability.
Reference
Asiyai, R. I. (2015). Improving Quality Higher Education in Nigeria: The Roles of Stakeholders. International Journal of Higher Education, 4(1), 61-70. Retrieved from – https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1060560
Comin, D. (2017). Total factor productivity. The new palgrave dictionary of economics, 1-4. Retrieved from – https://www.dartmouth.edu/~dcomin/files/def.pdf
Etuk, R. U., Etuk, G. R., & Michael, B. (2014). Small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) and Nigeria’s economic development. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(7), 656. DOI: 10.5901/mjss. 2014.v5n7p656
Fafunwa, A. B. (2018). History of education in Nigeria. Routledge. ISBN- 9780429847134
Fakolade, O. A., Adeniyi, S. O., & Tella, A. (2017). Attitude of teachers towards the inclusion of special needs children in general education classroom: the case of teachers in some selected schools in Nigeria. International Electronic Journal of elementary education, 1(3), 155-169. Retrieved from – file:///C:/Users/sys1/Desktop/272-1-545-1-10-20170825.pdf
Rafindadi, A. A., & Yusof, Z. (2015). Do the dynamics of financial development spur economic growth in Nigeria’s contemporal growth struggle? A fact beyond the figures. Quality & Quantity, 49(1), 365-384. Retrieved from – https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chux_Iwu/publication/314982282_Re examining_Nigeria’s_Contributions_to_the_African_Union_and_the_Domestic_Socio-Economic_Ramifications/links/58d0d6f9a6fdcc344b0d06a1/Re-examining-Nigerias-Contributions-to-the-African-Union-and-the-Domestic-Socio-Economic-Ramifications.pdf
Schaltegger, S., & Wagner, M. (2017). Managing the business case for sustainability: The integration of social, environmental and economic performance. Routledge. ISBN9781351280518
Sulaiman, L. A. R. (2018). Terrorism comes with Economic Underdevelopment: An Appraisal of how Boko-Haram Activities Undermined Nigeria’s Economy during Jonathan’s Regime. Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology, 15(2), 92. Retrieved from – https://www.bangladeshsociology.org/BEJS15.2.pdf#page=92
Weforum.org (2018). [online] Www3.weforum.org. Available at: https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GCR_Report_2011-12.pdf [Accessed 27 Nov. 2018]. ISBN- ISBN-13: 978-92-95044-74-6
Weforum.org. (2018). Retrieved from https://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2017-2018/05FullReport/TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2017%E2%80%932018.pdf
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