Abstract Technical education, as entrenched in the Nigerian National Policy on Education, is concerned with qualitative technological human resources

development directed towards a national pool of skilled and self-reliant craftsmen, technicians and technologists in technical and vocational fields. The two key phrases, which readily come to mind in this type of education, are competency-based skill-acquisition and sound scientific knowledge. In order to cope with the requirements of fast developing economy, to gear up Job Creation and meet the challenges of globalization, it was absolutely imperative to realign Technical and Vocational Education system in the country to meet this challenges. This paper therefore attempts to appraise the contributions of this often neglected but yet inevitable educational sector in order to make significant progress in terms of national development and job creation.
Key Words: Manpower, Vocational Technical Education, Industrial Work Experience

Introduction Man in any society has some specific duties to perform in order to live a happy life. As man continue to live in his environment his demand and problems continue to rise, raging from single to complex. Nowadays, the need of any society have long transcended from those of food, shelter and clothing. They have grown to encompass the need for wealth, prestige, physical fitness, political independence, transportation and communication among others. As these demands continue to be complex, therefore, there arose the need to equip man strongly to grapple with the complexity of demands in his environment, hence the emergence and development of vocational education to develop manpower to help solve the aforementioned society needs. According to Smith (1991), vocational education in its broad sense refers to the training that enables one to carry on successfully a socially useful occupation. This definition refers to vocational education as training for useful employment in trade and industrial, agricultural, business and home making among others. Manpower on the hand according to Okorie (2000) could be seen as the total supply of person available and fitted for service. Thus vocational education prepares manpower since according to Olaitan (1992), vocational education is a processes of getting people ready and keeping them ready for the types of service we need. Vocational education is thus a sine-qua-non for manpower development. Unfortunately, the level of manpower production in vocational technical education compared with the needs of the society for technical development has never been encouraging. Ozoro (1990) stated that vocational technical education has remained uncoordinated, unplanned, inadequate and to a considerable extent irrelevant to societal needs. It is also unimaginable that in a country like Nigeria where resources abound, many technicians and technologist are found in the streets of towns and cities without jobs, a situation which buttresses Ozoros claim that their training is inadequate for or irrelevant to societal needs. It is against this background that it becomes important to seek ways of improving the quality and quantity of manpower production in vocational technical education in Nigeria.

CONCLUSIONS
The various national resource endowments of Nigeria, some of which are yet to be identified portend future greatness for the country. What is now needed is for an effective system of vocational technical education to be evolved so that manpower capable of exploring vast potentials of the land can be produced. The route to manpower production, technological, industrial and economic development are effective vocational educational system, adequate manpower information, forging close ties between employers and training institutions, periodic appraisal of manpower needs assessment, improved social vocational technical education worker, and the need to over-haul, harmonize and centralize the administrative machine of vocational technical education, among others are sine qua non for manpower production in vocational education. RECOMMENDATIONS There should be reinvigoration of the functions of the national manpower board as follows: 1. To determine and advise the government on the nations manpower needs in all occupations. 2. To coordinate manpower policies and programmes of federal, state and local governments. 3. To collect, collate, analyze and publish manpower and employment information data. 4. To make inputs in the formulation of policies and programmes on manpower development and utilization of government agencies. 5. To prepare periodic master plans for the coordinated development of institutions of higher learning. 6. To formulate training programmes by all government agencies, including ministries, corporations and government owned companies. 7. To formulate policies governing scholarship and students loan tenable within or outside Nigeria. 8. To formulate employment policies and the designing of programmes for employment generation productivity enhancement and skill development.

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