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Students Perception Of Secretarial Profession In The Era Of Information And Communication Technology
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However, these new developments brought by technological challenges
require even more knowledge and skills beyond being a professional
secretary. For the secretary to be abreast with the changing times, face
the challenges and overcome the old ways of doing things she or he
needs training requirements in recent times to help meet organizational
objectives. Information technology has affected many professions in
recent times. The roles of secretarial professionals have been turned
around by technology. It has provided the tools that shift the role of
secretaries from that of information recorders to business strategists
(Appah and Emeh, 2011). Several other authors are of the view that the
secretary has to be well equipped to meet the present challenges of a
modern office.
The ministry of Education is one of the key ministries
for the Government of Ghana. The overall goal of the Ministry is to
provide relevant and quality education for all Ghanaians especially the
disadvantaged to enable them acquire skills which will make them
functionally literate and productive to facilitate poverty alleviation
and promote the rapid socio-economic growth of the country. In order to
achieve its broad objectives the ministry has employed a significant
number of secretaries to perform clerical works. This study seeks to
examine the level of productivity of the secretaries in the context of
modern office technologies.
1.2. Statement of The Problem
An
automated office, undoubtedly, offers new roles and responsibilities for
the secretary. Such new roles presuppose that additional training and
qualifications are required from the secretaries. The relevance of
automation in business was identified by Aromolaran (2003) as follows
i.) Creating a distinct career path for the secretary.
ii.) Automation creates a prominent place for the secretary on the organization chart.
iii.) It creates routine and assigned roles for the secretary.
iv.) With automation the secretary now spends less time in correcting, revising, proof-reading and reproducing documents.
Cameron
(1982), a very long time ago, commented that it takes up to 10 to 15
years between the introduction of new equipment in the market and its
installation in small organizations. This is particularly peculiar to
private business organizations in developing countries. In modern times,
it is not uncommon to find some organizations still subjecting
secretaries to the use of manual typewriters. When secretaries are not
provided with efficient and effective working tools, productivity is
definitely bound to be low.
Duniya (2011) also observed that due to
the introduction of sophisticated technological (electronic) office
equipment into today’s office and the role secretaries need to play in
ensuring accuracy and efficiency in their jobs, the secretaries need to
meet the challenges by acquiring new skills and competencies for
efficient operations in the electronic office. There is continuous
advancement in technology which has affected the secretarial profession
in terms of the quality, speed and accuracy of works performed.
This
study is therefore undertaken in order to gain understanding about the
perception of students on office technologies on secretaries’
productivity in Osun state polytechnic, Iree
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