ABSTRACT
For the effective discharge of their duties, professional secretaries must have a mastery of the basic office skills. These skills include Shorthand, typewriting etc. of all these skills, shorthand happens to the most important and most challenging of all.
But in secretarial departments of most tertiary institutions, most students believed that secretaries no longer write shorthand in business offices with the invention and installation of such machines e t c.
This nation has contributed to their poor performance in the course since their interest is restricted to passing the course only and not in mastering the
skill.
The purpose of the study is to determine whether secretaries still apply this skill in the discharge of their duties.
In order to achieve this purpose, the research as reviewed the contributions of some anthers on the research topic. This made up their literature Review. They also selected five business organizations in Enugu state for their study. The population of her study is all the secretaries in the area of the study. They also constructed questionnaires which were distributed to all the respondents in the area of the study. These questionnaires were letter collected and the responses analyses.
After the analysis, the researchers found out that shorthand is still an indispensable tool to the practicing professional secretary in spite of the modern office equipments at her disposal. They also found out that most executives do not give office dictation often never the less, they take it for granted that the practicing professional secretary is a wizard in the art of writing shorthand.
Based on their findings, they reprimanded that students should accept the challenges posed by shorthand, take measures to master the skill and devote more time to their studies. They also recommended that lecturers should review their methods of teaching often and on to ensure adequate supervision and guidance.
Having done justice to the research topic, the researchers suggested that other project researchers should investigate those areas
(a) Factors responsible for students poor performance in shorthand.
(b) Strategies for effective teaching and learning of shorthand.
