Inclusion of innovations into the Nigerian automobile engineering prospectus

The improved number of new sub-systems in modern automobiles intended to improve upon their safety, economy and comfort among other things have made them more sophisticated and complex to maintain. The prospectus for the training programmes of their maintenance personnel in Nigerian Universities has however, remained rigid for several decades from now behind the state-of-the- art of automobile engineering. This study thus, identified some innovations perceived as important to be included into the Nigerian prospectus to enhance its relevance and adequacy. A researcher-designed structured questionnaire was used to survey the opinions of Automobile Staff (AS) of Peugeot Assembly of Nigeria (PAN) plant and the Automobile Lecturers (AL) in three purposively selected states of Nigeria, being Adamawa, Borno and Kaduna states. Data obtained from 56 respondents were analyzed. Three null hypotheses were tested using the t-test statistics. It was found that 41 innovations including Anti-lock Braking System (ABS), Electronic Fuel Injection (EFI), Variable Valve Timing Intelligence (VVT-I), On-board Diagnostic System (OBD), were perceived as important to be integrated into appropriate modules of the tertiary institutions prospectus. Interventions to upgrade both human and material resources in order to facilitate the teaching and learning of skills related to these innovations were recommended.