SECRETARIAL BUSINESSES AS AN ANTIDOTE FOR JOB CREATION AND POVERTY REDUCTION AMONG BUSINESS EDUCATION POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS

Abstract

The study ascertained secretarial businesses as an antidote for job creation and poverty reduction among business education postgraduate students. Three research questions guided the study. A descriptive research design was used for this study. The population of this study comprised all the postgraduates‟ students of Business Education programme during the academic session of 2022/2023. Using simple random sampling technique, a total of 50 postgraduates‟ students were selected as sample size of the study. Researcher self-developed questionnaire tagged: Secretarial Businesses, Job Creation and Poverty Reduction Questionnaire (SBJCPRQ) with 0.79 reliability coefficient was used for data collection. Descriptive statistics of mean was used in answering research question 1 while research questions 2 and 3 were answered using regression analysis. The findings indicated that digital, internet searching, problem solving, critical thinking, customer services, entrepreneurship, accounting, effective management of resources, research development and self-motivation skills were among the secretarial skills required for the establishments of secretarial businesses for job creation and poverty reduction among business education postgraduate students. Independent variable (secretarial businesses) was found to be significant and strongly determine job creation among business education postgraduate students with the P-value less than 0.05 and magnitude of secretarial businesses (β = .547, t = 4.523, P<.05) and that about 54.7% increases in job creation of Business education graduates could be attributed towards secretarial businesses. The independent variables (secretarial businesses) were found to be significant and strongly determine poverty reduction with the P-value less than 0.05 and magnitude of secretarial businesses (β =.613, t = 5.377, P<.05). This further indicated that about 61.3% poverty reduction among Business Education graduates could be attributed towards secretarial businesses. It was recommended that entrepreneurship development should be introduce into the curriculum of secretarial administration with the view to train its recipients for understanding how to commercialized skills acquired.

 Keywords: Secretarial Businesses, Job Creation, Poverty Reduction, Business