Secretarial Practice In The Banking Sector; Problems And Prospects

The study was carried out to assess Problems and prospect of secretarial job-tasks in Banking sector. Descriptive design was adopted for the study, and also four research questions and four null hypotheses were posited. . Findings among others were: The views of Secretaries and Executives did not differ on the job-tasks required by the secretary, the performance of Secretarial Education Graduates was significantly dependent on the impact of Information Technology, the performance of job-tasks in banking sector was significantly dependent on the competencies acquired by Secretarial Education Students. Performance of Secretarial Education Students depended on the correction of lapses in the curriculum. It concluded that for Secretarial Education Graduates to cope with the trend of Information Technology, the curriculum of Secretarial Education needed to be revisited to embrace what is required in banking sector. In view of the findings and conclusion, the following recommendations were made: there is need for the Federal and State Ministries of Education to provide facilities/equipment for development of .Information Technology in Institutions of learning so that Secretarial Education Students can be trained and equipped to face the problems and prospect of banking sector. Wema Bank Igboora Branch serves as the case study and the research project was carried out to iron out the Problems and Prospects on Secretarial Practice in Banking Sector.

The chapter one of this project started with the Background information of the topic under review and also shows the significance of the study. Scope and limitation of the study.

Chapter two has to do with literature reviews and works of different authors concerning the topic of the project.

Also chapter three is about research methodology, data collection, method, population and sampling technique and questionnaire administration for examining research topic.

Chapter four dealt with presentation and analysis of data collection and as well as discussion of findings.

Lastly, chapter five contained summary of the whole research in work and possible recommendations were also offered.

Introduction

1.1 Background to the Study

According to Klein (1958), the origin of secretarial profession can be trace to the Fifteen century in the Roman Empire were a set of professionals were made to record the secret deed of the church. Also the word "secretary" is taken from the Latin word "Secretus" meaning "A notary scribes are professional letters writers and were known to be keeper of secret. Therefore, the term "secretarial practice" combines all the duties performed and carried out in the administrative department of an organization and all these duties can be performed by a trained secretary.
Secretarial profession is for specialists who have undergone some special training in secretarial activities. It is a kind of profession that some wayward professional and academicians cannot venture into, because it requires sound knowledge of short hand writing, typing, knowledge of reception and telephoning activities, recording of minutes of the meetings, knowledge of filling and indexing, employers correspondence and knowledge of accounting.
Secretarial practice is not for those who do not acquire secretarial skills as people believe that anybody can perform secretarial duties.

Nowadays, secretaries do not deal with papers or carry out their duties manually because all office tasks are handled with electronic and telecommunication gadgets (Ntukidem, 2000).

The aim of educating someone is to develop the desirable qualities in him or her. Education is a process of enabling individuals to live as useful and acceptable members of the society. This is why Denga (2001) describes an educated man as a refined gentleman or gentlewoman, socially, morally, intellectually, physically and aesthetically. For a person to be seen as refined, one needs to demonstrate some basic competencies that would enable him/her function effectively as a producer and consumer of goods and services. There is no doubt some fundamental societal norms and values are basic requirements for a person to survive in the society.

Therefore, the skills, attitudes and knowledge required to prepare such persons for effective performance in chosen career is education.

A Business Educator has the sole responsibility of producing learning experiences that could be acquired through a sound Business Education Curriculum. In line with this, Agumuo (1997) says, there is generally increase in complexity and world wide interaction of business, industry and numerous technologies and the changes they have brought have affected the way things are done in the office. These technologies include the facsimile machines, interactive technologies, Internet, Electronic Mail (e-mail), Voice mail, teleconferencing and other new information systems. These innovations in office technology have almost completely altered the nature, environment, content, tasks and competencies in Secretarial Education all over the world.

Increasing number of business executives expect their secretaries to function as administrative assistance who can relief them of their numerous routine and specialized tasks. The secretary has always been a vital link between those who make management- level decisions and those who react and implement the decisions. Agumuo (1997) also adds that due to the dynamic nature of the office, task of the secretaries has continued to assume added dimension. Agumuo (1997) observes that for large organization today, the secretary can lend administrative support to Executive by handling long time consuming tasks such as compiling and organizing information for report and long memorandum, maintaining confidentialities, disseminating information relating to administrative policies, researching data for presentation to be given by the executive, composing and dictating certain letters and performing any other duties delegated by management.

Osuala (1998) adds that, most of the activities of the office such as accounting, mail handling, and filing, telephone switching systems, reprographics and others are now performed by self regulating machines. The secretary controls most of these machines. Brussels (2007), states that secretarial task is interesting, challenging and undergoing many changes and the changes have made the secretarial profession even more appealing. The biggest change of all has been to the name `Secretary" that secretaries are now becoming more known as "Office Professionals" and this title indicates that the secretary"s role can be expected to include some managerial duties. These include supervising other office workers or administrative staff or even training staff.

Oyeyiola (2005) points out some of the tasks of a Secretary as : Typing of memorandum, business letters and correspondence of various kind, Handle computer/word processing related activities, Transcribe dictated material into mail-able document, Arrange files and various information into appropriate headings, Manage the boss appointment diary and Act behalf of the boss.

From the above points, it is noted that the traditional tasks performed by the secretaries in the Nigeria differ from the banking tasks in the same geo political zone. This therefore, gives the background information in the context of which this study was conducted.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Office technology and innovation have affected the way things are done in the office. This means great transformation in the tasks performed by Secretaries in the banking sector such as:

Communication services, Computer operation, word processing, Database, Excel etc. There is great concern by Business Educators that the current National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) curriculum and course specifications for Secretarial Education published in 1998 no long meet the needs of the banking business office. Nwosu (1997) views that within the period of 1990 - 1999, the world has witnessed unprecedented innovations especially in computer, telecommunication and micro graphic.

From observation and interaction of the researcher with some of the Secretaries, it was observed that some of the equipment and machines used in producing documents are obsolete and cumbersome and also not able to meet up with the current challenges in the offices with the global Technology of the 21st Century. Incompetence on the part of Secretarial Education graduates in terms of interview into white collar job. A Secretarial Education graduates went for an interview at National Research Institute for Chemical Technology (NARICT) and could not perform better than students from other institutions because they were practically oriented and more acquainted with the new technologies than those from Business Education in the North Central Nigeria. Secretarial Education graduates are not conversant with the operation of Internet that is; how to go online and offline and even to send e-mail through their e-mail is difficult except with the help of an expert or operator.

Moreso, from researcher"s interaction with Secretarial Education graduates working in an organization it was found that some of them were not able to operate computer because they were adaptive to the use of typewriter which rendered their service in an organization useless and these made their employer to look for someone who is computer literate and acquainted with the new technologies. Another problem observed was that Secretarial Education teachers that is, those that found themselves in teaching line were not able to teach computer courses effectively even to operate computer was difficult instead they hired the services of people from other department to take the course or that particular subject. Browsing on the Internet is part of the new technology or the banking things that is been done in the office today. A number of educators cannot browse except to go to the Café and look for assistance of the operators there. Hence there is this problem of incompetence in using and teaching computer courses or subject. And one of the major problems militating against the Secretarial Education at all levels in the Nigeria is inadequate manpower.

In line with the stated problems, the researcher deemed it necessary to carry out this study in order to know the actual jobtasks the Secretarial Education Students are required to perform in banking sector.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The major objective of this study is to investigate/examine the problems and prospect of secretarial job-tasks in banking sector and implication on Secretarial Education Curriculum in Nigeria

The specific objectives are to:

Investigate the job-tasks which are required by the Secretaries in banking sector in the Nigeria.

Examine the impact of Information Technology on the
performance of Secretarial Education graduates.

Examine the competencies required by Secretarial Education graduates in performing job-tasks in banking sector in the Nigeria.

Investigate the lapses in the current curriculum used in the preparation of Secretarial Education graduates for the job-tasks in banking sector in the Nigeria.

1.4 Research Questions

The following research questions were posed for answers with reference to the Nigeria:

What are the job tasks required by the Secretaries in banking sector?

To what extent does Information Technology have impacts on the performance of Secretarial Education graduates?

What are the competencies required by Secretarial Education graduates in performing job-tasks in banking sector?

To what extent do the lapses in the current curriculum used in the preparation of Secretarial Education graduates affect their job performance in banking sector?

1.5 Research Hypotheses:

In view of the research questions above, the following null hypotheses were also formulated based on the Nigeria:

There is no significant difference between the banking job-tasks performed by the Secretaries and the traditional tasks

There is no significant impact of Information Technology on the performance of Secretarial Education graduates.

There is no significant relationship between the competencies required by the Secretarial Education graduates and the performance of job-tasks in banking sector.

There is no significant relationship between the lapses in the current curriculum and the preparation of Secretarial Education graduates for the job-tasks in banking business office.

1.6 Significance of the Study

The study will also be significant to the students of Secretarial Education because it will open their eyes to see that there are some basic skills they suppose to acquire before going to the labour market and they suppose to be practically-oriented. In the absence of facilities/equipment the students should enroll themselves during holidays to equipment themselves.

The study will also help the Secretarial Education teacher to acquaint himself with the studies of computer both theoretically and practically because you cannot give what you don"t have. It will also be of significant to the future researcher who will plan to carry out a research work on this same study to dig more into the problems in
Secretarial Education.

1.7 Delimitation of the Study

This study was delimited to the problems and prospect of secretarial job-tasks in banking sector and implications on Secretarial Education Curriculum of Colleges of Education and University in the North Central Nigeria. It was delimited to only the state capitals in the

• Impact Of Modern Technology On Secretarial Practice
• Professional Ethics In Secretarial Practice And The Level Of Job Performance Of Secretaries
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• Banking and Finance Project Topics and Materials