Most of the SMEs in the automotive sector have specialized on service and repair of passenger cars, commercial vehicles, agricultural equipment and motor cycles. Only a few enterprises offer a wider range of services to their customers on a lower level or due to the absence of a reasonable volume of business in their core competency.
Modern cars are equipped with mechanical -, electrical -, electronic - and computerised parts and components on a high technical level. As you can see on Ghana's roads nearly all new cars, lorries, agricultural machinery and other vehicles are equipped with systems on a high technical level. Therefore there is a need for qualified employees readily available to maintain and service the fleet of cars available in the country.
These skilled workers must have a wide range of qualifications within their field of specialisation. For the service, maintenance, fault finding and repair of mechanical, electrical, electronic, hydraulic and pneumatic equipment of the modern cars, an excellently trained “Automotive Mechatronic” with the expected skills is required.
Traditionally, apprenticeship training in the informal sector is mainly business process oriented and includes instructions by a Master Craftsperson (MCP). Instructions don't follow a formalized standard or plan and depend mainly on the MCP's initiative, capability and competency. Modular structured training courses which are based on a defined and recognized standard will ensure a certain level of skills and competency obtained at the end of the training course.
For teachers/facilitators, this means to deal constantly with the new automotive technologies and creates the need to educate themselves further, to ensure that „Motor Vehicle Mechatronics‟ are adequately trained in the training centres.
