CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Recently, there have been some resentment shown by some organizations as a result of the disappointment that they encountered while interviewing people who are supposed to have been trained as secretaries. It is also an experience that is becoming common or rather already common with students dispatched for their industrial training scheme. But we know that a large part of this problem can be traced back to the lack of adequate secretarial training facilities in our higher institutions. It is not a hidden truth that most of our higher institutions are not what they ought to be in the sense that they lack the variety of equipment they need to up to – date models of the equipment they need.
No doubt, this lack has affected the production of secretaries that is why this project work wants to look at these shortcomings their effects and people reaction to them. Now, when we talk about producing a secretary, a is different from a typist. If we are going to produce a secretary, the facilities or equipment required will be very much different and advanced than that required to produce a typist. It is, however unfortunate today that if one goes to some of our institutions of higher learning, he will discover that the totality of the facilities left to the disposal of the or the students look more like than it looks likes that of secretaries. A secretary is an executive assistant who possess a mastery of office skills, who demonstrate the ability to assume responsibilities without direct supervision, who exercises initiative and judgement and who make decision within the scope of assigned authority –NATIONAL SECRETARIES ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL.
It when we have a knowledge of who the secretary is that we can assess the type of training. The secretary needs a good knowledge of general education, good knowledge of short hand, typewriting, office practice and administration, business law, law and practice of meeting, human resources management, accounting, data processing, industrial psychology, human relations, economies and a foreign language.
