The Needs Assessment of Training and Development in Africa
In most of Africa, training is incorrectly used as a solution to performance problems and trainees are sent to training programs without basic or require skills and may sometime have not the confidence to learn. Before training issues are considered, a careful needs assessment analysis is required to develop a systematic understanding of where training is needed, what needs to be taught or trained, and who will be trained. Unless such a needs assessment has been adequately performed it may be difficult to rationally justify providing training and training programs may have the wrong content, objectives, or methods.
The needs assessment of training and development in Africa are different from one region to the other. Accurate needs assessment can help develop a program or course based on the real needs of the people that it is serving. As time is often limited in training programs, courses which takes learners’ needs into account can ensure that what is most useful for learners is covered. The needs assessment prior to training and development is paramount in places like Africa since elements such as deficiencies or gap in employees skills and knowledge, mistakes made on the job, feeling incompetent, and even measuring the success of a job are all needs assessment. Apprenticeship and mentoring are common methods of training in Africa. Most individuals are trained on the job through mentoring. Needs assessment therefore identifies the gap between what the job expects an employee to do, on the one hand, and what the employee is actually doing, on the other. A training needs analysis discovers whether there is a discrepancy or conflict between what an employee ought to be doing and that which he or she can do. In order to be competitive, Africa needs assessment is a requisite to training and development of its