An Assessment of Secretarial Skills: ABasis for an Enhancement Program

Abstract

A “Barangay” is considered as the smallest unit of the government in the Philippines. It performs the initial operations such as the formation and employing of programs, activities, policies, and others that involved the community or the administrative functions. Section 394, Book III, Local Government Units, of the Local Government Code of the Philippines, states the Barangay Secretary: Appointment, Qualifications, Powers, and Duties. The Barangay secretary shall be appointed by the Barangay Chairman with the concurrence of the majority of all the council members. The secretary maintains an updated record of all the residents of the barangay, any requests made from the barangay regarding certifications, endorsements and other forms are the responsibility of the secretary. The proponents used primary and secondary data in meeting the objectives of the study. The primary data was obtained through document index reviews from the constituents using questions structured by Likert Scale for the researchers to know secretarial skills of the concerns. The sample was represented by the whole population and census was used to cover-up the forty-nine (49) Secretaries from Majayjay and Victoria, Laguna in the Philippines. Then in finalizing the Enhancement Program, the researchers use the Descriptive investigation that present facts concerning the nature and status of anything –a group of persons, several objects, set of conditions, class of events, system of thought or any other kind of phenomena which one way wish to study (Orcullo, 2000). With the data gathered from the 49 secretaries, the following results were drawn: The Communication Skills of the secretaries in terms of business letter parts, placement and format were rated “moderately aware”, the Memoranda format, “moderately aware”, the Minutes of the Meeting’s element, “moderately aware”, the Resolution format, “extremely aware”, and the Reports, “moderately aware.” The secretaries answered “moderately aware” in Computer Skills, “moderately aware” in Organizational Skills, “moderately aware” in Administrative Skills, “moderately aware” in Interpersonal Skills, and “moderately aware” in Record-Keeping Skills. It signifies that respondents are not fully skilled in secretarial works and have lapses in performing their duties. The researchers inferred that the secretaries were not able to meet the standards in the secretarial profession, therefore need improvement in secretarial skills.