It is obvious that the
secretarial professionals are facing hardtimes in the country due to  disdainful approach to the noble profession by employers of labour. The secretarial  profession comprises of two cadres viz: the professionally-trained secretaries  who are  versed in shorthand and the typists cadre, now Secretarial Assistant with the knowledge of information Communication Technology (ICT) and/or being Computer literate.
Ezenwafor I. Justina in the Professional Secretary Journal  Vol.2  No. 2 of July 2011, pp 16-17 opined that  Secretarial  staff consists of two broad groups  of office workers with distinct  nomenclature, but  inter-related  function revolving  around the creation, modification, dissemination, storage  and retrieval of office documents. The two  groups are Typists and Secretaries. That secretarial services are not for everybody, but for those who have acquired the knowledge, skills, competence and attitudes as well as the discipline to work late under pressure and handle emergencies.
According to Nwosu in Ezenwafor (2011), a Secretary is focused as the live-wire or blood-stream of every organisation.  However, secretarial staff generally are the centre of activities in any organisation. This is why no matter how small an organisation is, it must recruit the services of a Typist who serves as both receptionist/secretary until the organisation could employ a qualified secretary.
Buttressing the role of secretarial staff in the University system, they are described as office personnel who combined the mastery of secretarial skills with other skills required for routine office functions.
In the same vein, a paper titled: “Qualities and Demands of a Secretary in the Attainment of Universities’ Overall Objectives” presented at the 1st National  Conference of the Association of  Secretariat Staff of Nigerian Universities (ASSNU), held at Ambrose  Alli University (AAU), Ekpoma, Edo State on 17th and 18th  March, 2005, highlighted  several roles and traits which each of the secretarial practitioners in an organisation must  possess in order to achieve the set goals of an organisation. These include good mannerisms, tactfulness, dedication, methodical, good memory, efficiency, good public/human relations acumen filter, motivator and what have you.
A renowned economist, Robinson, simply pictured the secretary as an “Assistant to the Executive, possessing the mastery of office skills and ability to assume responsibility without direct supervision, who displays initiative with good command of English Language.” The poser here is: how  the services of these secretarial professionals are being handled in the labour market? What are  the incentives to motivate them towards adequate and appropriate  productivity?
Recent research has proved that fawer candidates now apply tertiary institutions to read Secretarial Studies, while the annual exodus of the professionally-trained secretaries is on he increase.
The cause(s) of this ugly phenomenon are not far-fetched.
One is the terminal point for Typists which had been USS 7  until June, 1998 when the Federal Government deemed it necessary to extend the terminal  salaries  of Executive Officers, Secretaries and Typists by one grade  level, thus  moving the Typists by promotion  to consolidated  Tertiary Institution Salary Structure  CONTISS 8), the present terminal point. In fact, the implication of this is stagnation, frustration and a feeling of neglect in the workplace.
Inasmuch as acquiring the knowledge of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in a scientific and technological environment is ideal, modern Computer Operators have been accorded more prestige and recognition than the professionally-trained Secretaries and Typists or Secretarial Assistants who had gone through the rudiments of asdf;Ikj, the acronyms in manual typewriting  courses and intense practices in secretarial administration.
For instance, before someone is designated Typist or Secretary, there are basic professional qualifications required such as: 25wpm, 35wpm, 40wpm and finally 50wpm, coupled with stenographic symbols (shorthand) from recognised professional institutions or authorised establishments namely:Pitmans Examinations Institute, London, Royal Society of Arts (RSA), now taken over by the National Business and Technical Education Board (NABTEB) at stages I, II, III respectively. Besides,  other educational qualifications were equally obtained by the secretaries  such as GCE O/A ‘Levels, WASC or WAEC, NECO, SSCE, Diploma in English  Language and Degrees by the Typist/Secretarial Assistants, yet these crop of veritable tools  in the workplace whose  services are indispensable  and inevitable  with wealth of experiences  in the work ethics  are treated  with disdain and neglect.
The present terminal point of the Secretarial Assistants on CONTISS 8 after several years of neglect by previous military administrations was achieved not until 1998 when the government of the erstwhile Military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar (rtd) came onboard and magnanimously awarded one level to all Secretarial staff of both Federal and State workforce of tertiary and allied institutions in Nigeria. Since then, the Secretarial workers are still marking time at a spot, stagnated without further motivation, especially with“Shylock” establishments.
Invariably, their situation is likened to the Biblical impotent man at the pool of Bethsaida who was there for 38 years because he had nobody to help him into the pool of healing until the Messiah met him at that ugly situation and rendered help. It is disturbing that salaries of other groups  of workers comparable to the secretarial assistants cadre  such as the Executive Officers, Craftsmen, Bindery Officers, Technical Officers, Security Officers, Library Officers just to mention but a few,  have been extended to CONTISS 13 and 14 with similar educational qualifications obtained by the Secretarial workers in the same tertiary  system. If colleagues could rise to such levels, what hinders the Secretarial Assistants to be similarly elevated? It is worthy  of note that due to the nature of their jobs several secretarial practitioners get their sight impaired as they strain  their eyes at the computer screen always, hence  most of them use medicated glasses yet certain  allowances  due  such as Eye Glasses Allowances of 20 per cent of Annual Basic Salary Special  Allowances of N6,000.00 specifically  for Secretarial  Staff attached to Principal Officers, for example, Deans, Directors of various organs or Units in the University system and other  allowances have been denied them.
It is worry some that holders of Advanced Typewriting Stage III i.e. 50wpm are not moved to CONTISS 13, since that qualification is equivalent to Final City and Guilds Certificates that catapulted the Bindery and Technical Officers to CONTISS 13 as well as Trade Test Class I which also moved craftsmen to Chief Works Superintendent on CONTISS 13.  This is unfair to secretarial practitioners whose duties are vital toward the achievement of the organisational goals and objectives.

Comr. Goddey N. Ominyanwa resides in Port Harcourt.