1.0 Introduction
An office cannot effectively function without secretary. A secretary is very important in every organization. Secretary is the pillar of every organization. The objectives of an organization can hardly be achieved if a secretary is not employed. The success or failure of any organization depends on the secretary. The impression the secretary creates influence the attitude of the public towards the organization. Every secretary must be able to handle office equipment such as typewriter, converting hand written materials into printed forms mail room equipment, dispatch and receive of mails telephone instrument for communication purposes and the computer, a powerful equipment which renders itself to various uses. All these activities and many others not described here from the duties attributable to confidential secretaries.
Therefore, before appraising the major roles confidential secretaries play in the civil service of Anambra State. Let us have a brief concept of which a secretary means. Confidential secretary has been defined in various ways.
A confidential secretary is an assistance to an executive possessing a mastery of the office, the person must demonstrate the ability to accept responsibility without direct supervision assigned direction.
A mere servant, his position is that he has to do what he is told and no person can assume he has any authority to represent anything at all.
The above definition was made when the education status of secretaries has not been enhanced and their duties not clearly identified. As time goes on the positive of confidential secretaries has started to experience what can be termed as modification is occasioned by technological development, which afforded advancement in secretarial field. Many scholars and association formulated a coherent definition of secretary. Homby (1942) in his dictionary identified a secretary as: An employee in an office who deals with correspondence, keeps records, make arrangement and appointment for a particular member of the staff and usually called private secretary.
The importance of a secretary and his work in any organisation cannot be overemphasized he is the gateway of every employer as he is the first person to be seen.
Finally, confidential secretaries are employed in various ministries constituting the evil service of Anambra State. They play significant roles but are faced with many problems, which will be identifier in the course of the research possibly solution or strategies would be suggested, aiming at ameliorating the problems, encountered by confidential secretaries.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitation of the study and Definition of technical terms.
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