EMERGING TECHNOLOGY COMPETENCIES NEEDED FOR ESTABLISHING AUTOMOBILE ENTERPRISES BY MOTOR VEHICLE MECHANICS IN FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY ABUJA, NIGERIA

The study identifies the emerging technology competencies needed for establishing automobile enterprises by Motor Vehicle Mechanics (MVM) in Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, Nigeria. Three research questions were answered, and three null hypotheses guided the study. A descriptive research design was employed for the study. The study was carried out in FCT, Abuja Nigeria. A total of 854 respondents comprising of 810 motor vehicle mechanic master craftsmen were drawn using a proportional stratified random sampling technique and 44 automobile industrial technicians were used as the total population for the study. A structured questionnaire developed by the researchers and validated by three experts was used for the data collected for the study. Cronbach Alpha statistics was used to determine the reliability coefficient of the instrument and the result was found to be 0.85. Mean and standard deviation were to answer the research questions while z-test statistics was used to test the null hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed among others that all the identified emerging technology competencies in the study were highly needed by MVM for establishing automobile enterprises in FCT, Abuja Nigeria. Based on the findings it was recommended that the National Automotive Design and Development Council (NADDC) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity and the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) incorporate the identified emerging technology competencies needed by MVM in their training programmes and curriculum as this will expose them to innovations in modern automobiles