CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
As life is becoming more dynamic, more complex in educational, socio-cultural, industrial and commercial developments due to the increasing technological advancements, the secretarial profession is not left in the loaves and the jobs of secretaries appear at first sight among those threatened. This is because new machines, are threatening to take over the jobs performed by secretaries thereby making them face job hazard of redundancy, retirement and retrenchments and mass unemployment.
Presently, Nigeria is undergoing technological revolutions just like any other developing country of the world. This technological advancement has actually revolutionized most office activities and procedures. Until recently, the study of secretarial educations programme in our polytechnics especially in Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), Enugu was based mainly on shorthand, typewriting and office practice. But the activities had greatly changed since supervision of the polytechnics by the NBTE.
The task and activities these categories of workers in most offices and business circles have also increased tremendously because of the high office responsibilities expected of the secretary to now handle with little or not supervisions, the scope of the course they now cover before qualification, has also greatly increased.
They now have to be trained and educated in too many courses and have to acquire more technical skills to be able to handle and manipulate the very modern office automated machines now inherent in most business offices. This will make them to be marketable and employable.
Secretarial profession now has to battle with the skills of handling the electric typewriters, scanners, word processors, the facsimile (Fax) machines, the computer etc. Will enable her meet up with the increasing demand of collecting, processing, storing and disseminating information as and when urgently required unlike the era of manual typewriters and filing cabinets that waste time.
It should be noted that these automatic high-technological machines cannot do everything or operate themselves without human aid, thus making the needs and quests for the professionals in the secretarial field necessary.
The most current and implicating question in the minds of the present day secretarial studies educators and curriculum planners is what to do in order to keep pace with the new technological changes in secretarial office automated equipment. This is because the more knowledgeable the secretaries are in the use of these office automated equipment, the better prepared our country will be to develop technologically.
Hence in the opinion of Kanu (1987), there must be positive attitude towards continuous up-dating of knowledge for everyone, especially the secretaries, if this age of technological advancement is to be acquired and improved advancement and inter-personnel skills developed.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEMS
The incessant changes and advancements in office automation has given rise to an urgent and constant training of the employees who handle and operated these new machines. It should be realized that most of these new high technological equipment like the computers, which stole into the business offices throughout the world unnoticed are very expensive to acquire and maintain and no organization would like these all cost effective equipment to lie idle, waste or become obsolete within a short period simply because there is no capable hands or professional to handle them. Therefore, these technological changes therefore represent a very demanding implication on the secretarial education curriculum.
Since a lot of office work is based on the basic knowledge of keyboarding and clerical skills, it becomes apparent that if secretarial education curriculum in out polytechnics is not reviewed, revisited and updated from time to time, to adequately take care of these technological changes, the products turned out with this curriculum might not be able to face challenges they are bound to meet when they are finally employed.
If therefore, becomes apparent that those concerned with the training and education of secretaries in out polytechnics and other institutions of higher learning should always adjust their curriculum so as to catch up and stay afloat with the incessant technological changes and advancements. The problem then is how far have Polytechnic especially Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu been able to adjust its curriculum to reflect the current development? How far have they been able to purchase the required equipment necessary for the training of Secretaries? Do they have qualified personnel to handle these equipment? Are the students being adequately prepared for the business world/ These and many more are what they research is out to answer.