Assessment of the Need and Relevance of Shorthand Knowledge for Contemporary Secretaries; Implications for Training and Assessment of Shorthand

Abstract

This study was set to establish whether shorthand was still practiced by secretaries and shorthand instructors and whether shorthand was still relevant to modern secretaries. Telephone interviews and questionnaires were administered to office Executives, Secretaries and Shorthand instructors drawn from both public and private institutions in Uganda, using convenience and snowball sampling. Data collection tools were pretested and harmonized before used. Data were processed and descriptively analyzed using SPSS version 20. The study showed that secretaries did not regularly used shorthand. Few instructors practiced stenography and disguised the irrelevance of shorthand to its relevancy, probably for job security. The study recommends that Shorthand instructors should be recruited from among Stenographic practitioners and not from “classrooms”, lest the pronounced irrelevancy of shorthand in the training curricular and world of work. The mastery of the skill would also improve if Secretarial Students were selected from among those who passed English language. I also recommend investigation into the causes of low application of shorthand skills by Secretaries in modern offices and if there exists any linkages to the evolution of social media languages and texting. Shorthand is however still considered relevant and an important tool for secrecy, confidentiality and speedy writing.