Career Prospects of Confidential Secretary in Public Establishments
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The objectives of the study are;
- To ascertain the prospect of secretaries in public establishment
- To ascertain the occupational mobility prospects of the secretary in a public establishment
- To ascertain the impact of secretarial course to student
- To determine the impact training prospects of the secretary in a public establishment
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Meaning and duties of a Secretary
There is a serious misconception about who is the true secretary in Nigeria in spite of its numerous definitions. This is because the personality of the secretary has been misrepresented. There are many impostor secretaries whose activities have lowered the image of the secretary thereby discouraging many people who would have loved to take up the vocation. The typewriter and now the computer commonly used by the secretary, stenographer, typist and data entry personnel constitute the major deceptive factor in identification of the true secretary. For many people, anyone sitting behind the typewriter or computer is a secretary, a notion that is entirely wrong. The real graduate office secretary has his/her qualities. He/she is, indeed, an executive secretary. The qualities required by the graduate office secretary have been outlined by Whitehead (1977) to include a wide general education, secretarial skills, business knowledge and personal qualities. In the Nigerian context, wide general education will include university degree, Higher National Diploma, National Diploma and Nigeria Certificate of Education. Secretarial skills include Shorthand 100-120 wpm and Typing 50-60 wpm, accurate spelling, sound knowledge of reprography, information and communication technology. Business knowledge involves a basic understanding of economics, commerce and book-keeping. Elementary knowledge of law is very useful. In addition, a comprehensive understanding of his particular firm and its personalities, products and markets is invaluable. The personal qualities are commonsense, tact, discretion, initiative, adaptability, honesty, and a few others. With the above listed qualities, one can start to imagine the type of office graduate secretary being described and his contribution to organization prospects and success. One is not ,therefore referring, to just anyone with basic secretarial or data entry skills, sitting behind the typewriter or computer when talking about the graduate office secretary who carries out executive duties.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought to career prospects of confidential secretary in public establishment
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data collected from the respondents were analyzed in tabular form with simple percentage for easy understanding.
A total of 133(one hundred and thirty three) questionnaires were distributed and 133 questionnaires were returned.
Question 1
Gender distribution of the respondents.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was on career prospects of confidential secretary in public establishment. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of career prospects of confidential secretary in public establishment
Summary
This study was on career prospects of confidential secretary in public establishment. Four objectives were raised which included: To ascertain the prospect of secretaries in public establishment, to ascertain the occupational mobility prospects of the secretary in a public establishment, to ascertain the impact of secretarial course to student and to determine the impact training prospects of the secretary in a public establishment. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of Osun state polytechnic, Iree. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made HODs, senior lecturers, secretaries and junior staffs were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
Conclusively, the prospects and success of any organization be it business, government, non-governmental or educational institutions depend on the leadership of the organization. A dynamic, resourceful, creative and intelligent leadership does not operate in a vacuum. He needs a superb assistant, a confidant, an organizer- who is the secretary- to make him succeed and ensure the organization progress and grow in the right direction. His level of training is the most distinguishing characteristics. It is, therefore, incumbent on the institutions of learning which train secretaries to be alive to their responsibilities
Recommendation
It is, therefore, recommended that institution of higher learning should endeavour to send secretaries to more computer technology/application workshops to update their knowledge to make them relevant and IT compliant; modern office technological gadgets should be procured and made available for use by secretaries to enable them increase their productivity and move with innovation and trends in the global world and private institutions training secretaries must not only employ competent human capital to train their secretaries but must ensure that their curriculum is updated and upgraded to make their graduate more professionally inclined and competitive in the labour market.
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