ETHICAL COMPETENCIES REQUIRED FOR HND OFFICE TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT GRADUATES TO PERFORM OPTIMALLY IN AKANU IBIAM FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC, UNWANA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

According to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, ethics is simply a system of moral principles that govern or influence person’s behaviour. Every culture develops ethics of it’s own. Ethical competencies are basically good because they conform to a particular moral standard.

Elegido (1996), sees ethics as a means of determining how it behave in order to ensure that our life is flourishing. In other words, it is a way of knowing what is worth doing and what is not worth doing irrespective of the challenges one is faced with.

Competency on the other hand is described as the knowledge, skills and behavioural attributes necessary for acceptable job performance. Here, knowledge refers to previous Education and experience, skills refers to the technical or practical skills required to perform the job and behavioral attributes refers to personality characteristics that are key to successful job performance.

Ethical competence is put forward as a key distinguisher between simply having skills and expertise, and having a true since of professionalism. It is the stage beyond technical competence where ethical competence must be considered when extending policies to support skill and competencies to training and education for professional occupation.

According to Andrew (2004/2007), professional ethical competence is the ability to work at an occupation in a manner as defined by professional ethical codes of conduct. This generally involves knowing when to apply and when to forbear from applying knowledge based on ethical principles: What is “right” and not “right” taking into account client needs as well as what is morally correct and sensitive to the situation of clients and other stake holders.

Ethical competence highlights an extra-element that must be added to expertise in order for an expert to quality as a professional, it concerns the manner in which expertise is exercised and qualified in order to encourage trust.

The competence of any professional depends on good evaluation of ethical principles and the level at which it is monitored and practiced according to Njoku, Ahukannah, Ohiri, and Nwosu (2000), Ethics is expected to be an open ended blue print inculcated in professional careers in various institution of learning to aid them in their professional competence.

Moreso, the secretarial profession; a good and wise secretary would from the rives and regulations deduce the ethics that would inform her behaviours.

Secretaries are ubiquitous office workers needed in every type of office (big or small) to assist their superiors or executives in carrying out their responsibilities. Been an inevitable profession because it is recognized that no office or established can function without the services of a secretary. Graduate of office secretaries are produced from the polytechnics, universities and college of education in Nigeria. A well trained secretary with good moral is always recognized highly and even become a hot cake. A good secretary should be able to render satisfactory services to his employer. Some definitions of the term secretary are necessary at this stage to provide an insight as to who is truly a secretary. Jennings (1980), Igwe (1992), Oni (1999), and Ugiagba (2002), adopted the definition of the National Secretaries Association (international) as follows:

The secretary has direct contact with people who visit the office for one transaction or the other and their contact with the secretary can make or mar their relationship with the organization. Beladelle (2002), quoting winter (1964) expressed that:

A secretary is a warm, endlessly, helpful and understanding individual whose sole aim is to alleviate, solve, prevent or soften problem workload and upset for his/her executive. He/she is the means by which the executive initiate handless and completes a project.

The secretary should still strive to maintain and enhance the dignity, status, competence and standards, of the profession and practitioner. The set of principles demand that the secretary should act accordingly that is, the secretary should act as a trusted agent in implementing responsibilities in the most competent manner, and also, exercise knowledge and skill to promote the interest of his or her employer, lecturer, and fellow students in the tertiary institution.

Secretaries have been accepted to be the ambassadors of their organization. They are seen on an eye among their fellow students in the tertiary institution. A secretary is the image maker of any environment they find themselves and the importance goes beyond. A secretary should be highly polished public relation officer not just for her office alone. The way she answers her own personal calls make or mar her, level of acceptance of change, tactfulness, politeness, cheerfulness, discretion, initiative, adaptability honesty and good time adds to her competence.

In this view, they are very important and their services are sensitive and therefore, need a very high level of competence. The real graduate office secretary has these qualities. He is, indeed an executive secretary. The qualities required by the graduate office secretary have been out lined by Whitehead (1977), to include a wide general education, secretary skills, business knowledge and personal qualities. In Nigerian context, wide general education will include university degrees, Higher National Diploma, National Diploma, and Nigeria Certificate of Education Secretary Skills includes Shorthand 100-120wpm, and typing 50-60wpm, accurate spelling, sound knowledge of reprography, information and communication technology.

With the above listed qualities, one can start to imagine the type of office graduate secretary being described and his contribution to organizational prospect and success. The is not therefore refereeing to just any one with basic secretarial or data entry skills, sitting behind the typewriter or computer when talking about graduate office secretary who carries out executive duties. Certainly, these are not graduate office secretaries rather they are at best typist, stenographers or data entry hands.

However, because of the inferior quality of some secretaries, their unethical behaviours, and non-existence of a council that monitor their activities in Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana, they tend to misbehave. Non-observance of professional ethical codes is demeaning and detrimental to the profession of the secretaries in Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana and as such could lead to non-competence in their various professions. It is important to note that professional ethics help to provide their members with guidelines for manipulating a professional attitude and conducting them in a manner which will enhance the status of their discipline, Agbebiyi (2000).

For this reason, there is need for moral rules or principles to govern all practitioners or prospective and practicing secretaries in Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana to aid them towards their professional competence. Also, Njoku, Ahukanna, Ohiri, and Nwosu (2000), stated that it is necessary for every staff to find out detailed information about the rules and regulation of your institutions, so, is easier for institutions to see unethical behaviours as one of the offences of dealing with workers either by outright dismissal or suspension.

Statement of the Problems

Because of the insatiable love for material things, crave for wealth and get-rich quickly syndrome among secretaries in institutions, some of them handle their job as no man’s business and take to receiving money or tips from clients, and visitors before rendering service for which they are employed and paid salaries. Some are in the habit of keeping files of clients out of reach in order to extort money from them.

Some do not know how to receive their office. Some of them sleep in the office while in duty the study seeks to address these problems.

Purpose of the Study

The main aim of this study is to identify the ethical competencies required for HND secretarial (Office Technology and Management) graduate to perform optimally in Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana.

The study specifically seeks to;

Research Questions

Significance of the Study

The study will be beneficial to the secretaries and secretarial students in Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana, Administrators, and Bankers of various establishments towards improving an excellent behavious and competency which enhance confidence, trust and survival of any profession.

In addition the study will help in identifying the negative and positive work ethics of secretary within and outside the institution thereby being beneficial to the societies, visitors, clients etc.

Finally it will be beneficial to an organization that employs secretaries by providing guidelines to aid them towards their professional competences.

Scope/Delimitation of Study

This study limits its scope to ethical competencies required by secretarial graduates to perform optionally in Akanu Ibiam Federal Polytechnic, Unwana in Ebonyi State.

What are the possible causes of unethical behaviour?
To what extend does this ethical principle affect the secretary’s competence?
What are the competencies needed by secretarial graduates?
To what extend do you agree that ethical competencies enhance confidence, trust and survival of any profession?
Determine how ethical principles affect the secretarial competencies.
Identify the possible causes of unethical behaviours.
Highlight competencies needed by secretaries to perform optimally.
To access the extent to which ethical competence can enhance trust, confidence etc.

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