Abstract
The study examined the human capacity building (HCB) of micro and small technical enterprises (MSTEs) in Southwestern Nigeria (SN). Questionnaire was administered on three hundred (300) respondents in SN. Two hundred and forty-nine (83%) retrieved were analysed for this study. Pre-study’s Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.936 indicates that the internal consistency of the data set was good. The study shows that the larger proportion of MSTEs had pre-higher education (49.4%), with 3-5 technical workshops training attended (46.3%), majority of them had less than 6 years of apprenticeship (98.4%), while as much as 91.9% of them had spent 3 years and above in technical education. The study further reveals that highest educational qualifications (HEQ) have significant and positive relationship with both profit level (r = 0.250**, p = 0.01) and sales volume (r = 0.248**, p = 0.01) of the enterprises. Hence, number of related technical workshop training attended (NTWA) have significant positive relationship with both profit level (r = 0.299**, p = 0.01) and sales volume (r = 0.329**, p= 0.01). The study further indicates that the 31% of relationship between HCB and performance of MSTEs in the study area was significant (F2, 71 = 3.712, p<5%) and thus concludes that to improve the performance of MSTEs in the study area, their human capital has to be improved. Therefore, the study recommends that MSTEs that want to improve on their performance have to focus on capacity building activities through increase in higher educational qualifications attained and increase the frequency of workshop training attended.