COMPARATIVE STUDY OF BILINGUAL AND MONO LINGUAL SECRETARIAL STUDENTS USING YABA COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY AS A CASE STUDY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.0 Background Of The Study

In the business and professional fields the secretary is the essential link in the diversified daily activities. Contributions are many sided and range from handling routine procedures to implementing management. A secretary is in any sense an asset secretarial duties involved in addition to typewriting and shorthand making and answering incoming and outgoing mails covering meeting and conference and filing. Reception work is also one of the most important functions performed by secretaries is it brings them into closer contact with the public.

Research has shown that today’s secretaries operate more like information managers rather than coffee fetching machines. In essence, the responsibility and title of secretary have charged the secretary is an important officer in any establishment.

The contributions and effectiveness of a secretary can either enhance or diminish the efficiency of an establishment There are different categories of secretaries. Like the medical secretary, legal secretaries, personnel secretaries, bilingual secretaries among others. For the purpose of this work the researcher made use of bilingual and monolingual secretaries.

1.1 Historical Background Of Yaba College Of Technology

The college started as a technical institution, which succeeded Yaba high college in October 1947.

Following the recommendation of the Eliot commission on higher education in west Africa the then students of the high college were moved to Ibadan to become the pioneering students of the university of Ibadan the first university in the country.

In effect the college became the premises higher institution in the country. In 1969 decree N0 23 the federal government as the college as autonomous institution under the name of “Yaba college of technology again decree No 23 of 1979 re-esatblished the college along with six other new federal polythnics and named it federal polyphonic Yaba” However as a result of persistent pressure mounted on the last civilian regime the government agreed to spare the renaming of the college and of technology.

The main objectives of the institution was to proud courses of instrument and training in technology applied science commerce and management both full time and part time basis and bilingual and monolingual secretaries are among the bodies attached to the secretarial studies department.

1.2 Statement Of Problems

Monolingual secretary can be said to be any one that has the knowledge of shorthand and typewriting. In multination companies it is always difficult for candidates without the knowledge of foreign languages to be absorbed.

The fact that French is not offered in the department it has made if difficult for student who are trained as monolingual secretaries to accept that bilingual secretaries can edge them out when faced with the challenges of communication in work situation. This researcher saw the challenges faced by monolingual secretaries when looking for job in multinational organization like UNICEF UNO, OAU etc and decided to research into if for others to read and understand.

1.3 Importance Of The Study/Purpose

The importance of this study was to compare the carabineer of the bilingual and the monolingual secretaries of the department in other to enlighten the student on the importance of the study.

Also the graduation of a secretary signify that the student was well equipped to face the hazard of working in the foreign company.

The study would be avenue of challenges for the department to re-organize the department and approval the inclusion of foreign language in the study.

1.4 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

The following statements will be validated in the course of this study;

H01: Bilingual secretarial students does not possess better skills than monolingual secretarial students.

H02: Trained bilingual secretarial students are not more relevant than trained monolingual students.

H03: There is no difference between the problems encountered in training bilingual secretarial students and monolingual secretarial students.

1.5 Significance Of The Study

This work will be significant to many people in many ways.

It will be beneficial to students who will from this study know the importance of bilingual secretary. It will also be of importance to employer of labour as well as the incoming students.

Institutions of learning will benefit immensely form the study to prepare their minds and train students that will be useful to the society today and years to come.

1.6 Scope Of Study

The study was only a part of the study of the whole department as it covered the academic strength of the secretarial studies department of Yaba college of technology in Surulere local government area of Lagos state.

1.7. Limitations Of The Study

In the course of carrying out this study, the researcher experienced some constraints, which included time constraints, financial constraints, language barriers, and the attitude of the respondents.

In addition, there was the element of researcher bias. Here, the researcher possessed some biases that may have been reflected in the way the data was collected, the type of people interviewed or sampled, and how the data gathered was interpreted thereafter. The potential for all this to influence the findings and conclusions could not be downplayed. 

More so, the findings of this study are limited to the sample population in the study area, hence they may not be suitable for use in comparison to other schools, local governments, states, and other countries in the world.