The Efficacies of Secretarial Profession by Ghana Education Service and Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

This project is carried out by employing an empirical method through questionnaire design and administration and tapped the perceptions and knowledge of the target elements of this study.  The research frame was about Ghana Education Service office workers within the Accra Metropolis including higher education institutions.  A qualitative data analysis is presented more in the literature review to support in conclusions for the purpose of this project work.  More importantly, the backbone of the research was based on both primary and secondary sources of data, which helped and revealed a lot of contentions within the secretarial practice.  A total of 200 questionnaires was developed and distributed among 200 staffs of G.E.S. based on random sampling technique.  This means that it is not the total number of GES in the Metropolis that was considered, it was only the total figure of 200 questionnaires that was considered and administered on the participants randomly.  The participants for that matter the respondents included the management, Supervisors, Secretaries/Stenographers, University Administrators and some Teachers/Lecturers.

The questionnaires were directly administered which gave results; hence, all the 200 questionnaires were answered and returned for presentation and analysis.  This was an opinion seeking from the elements of the population and drawn clear conclusions from their answers after careful presentation and analysis.  Ghana Education Service is one of the Government of Ghana public institutions established by an act of parliament to oversee the Educational systems in Ghana. Secretarial Practice is a professional practice and it has been misconstrued by many public or government administrators in terms of educational advancements and reforms in fulfilling the economic needs of a country.  Among all educational programmes at the higher level of education, it is only secretarial practice that has not been considered in the Universities at most.  Hence, no organization in Ghana has positions called company or corporate secretary which is meant to be professionally higher position for secretarial practitioners.  The career path for people pursuing secretarial studies in Ghana has limited future success and growth since the programme designers at the Universities failed to design courses that will build secretaries skills and knowledge to occupy the executive positions in corporate businesses and government sector to help them professionally to derive the objectives forward for successful development and growth.

Keywords: secretary, roles, perception, company secretary, typewriting, career path, typist, receptionist