SURVEY OF THE SKILLS NEEDED FOR STARTING AND DEVELOPING OF AN AUTOMOBILE BODY BUILDING WORKSHOP AS A SMALL SALE ENTERPRISE IN MINNA, NIGER STATE

Abstract

The study investigated on the skills needed to start and develop an automobile body building business as an enterprise in Minna, Niger State. Three research questions and two hypothesis tested at 0.05 level of significance were formulated to guide the study. A survey research design was adopted for the study. A total of 85 respondents comprising of 35 respondents as Panel beaters from Minna, 30 respondents as Client from Shiroro and 20 respondents as Apprentice from kateregi who were respondents to the instrument that was utilized for data collection. A structured questionnaire developed by the researched and validated by three experts was used for data collection for the study. The reliability coefficient of the instrument was 0.73 through mean and standard deviation were the statistical instrument used to analyze the data collected for the study and t-test was employed to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings and others revealed that panel beaters agrees that technical skills in body building process were needed in starting and developing of an automobile body building workshop and also reveals ways of acquiring the needed skills. Base on the findings of the study, the following recommendations were made among others. Organizations of workshop/seminars/capacity buildings for panel beaters to teach them about employability skills and innovations in automobile technology. Government, NGO, Banks and individuals should come to the aid of automobile panel beaters by granting them soft loans or grants to finance their workshops and establish new ones. The land tenor system should be made flexible enough to enable the automobile panel beaters to secure lands for establishments of a facility which is the impact of automobile workshop.