Abstract

The paper examined the influence of demographic variables on business education students’ choice of secretarial option in colleges of education in the North-west geo-political zone, Nigeria. Three null hypotheses were generated for the study. The descriptive research design was used for the study. A self-designed questionnaire was used to elicit responses from the respondents. Section A of the instrument dealt with the demographic data of the respondents while section B dealt with the variables such expected occupation remuneration and career prospect. The reliability of the instrument was ensured through the test and re-test reliability method and reliability co-efficient of 0.80 was obtained.  Data collected were analyzed using percentages, mean, standard deviation and simple regression. The findings revealed that sex (gender), expected occupation remuneration and career prospects have significant influence on business education students’ choice of secretarial option in colleges of education in the north-west geo-political zone, Nigeria. The study concluded that the low preference for secretarial option of business education at this level is as a result of the students’ inadequate awareness of the relevance and prospects of the skills acquired in secretarial education offered in colleges of education, polytechnics and universities and its lucrativeness in the world of work. This has resulted in the escalating shortage of secretarial teachers in the primary and post primary institutions of learning and secretarial professionals in office occupation respectively. The study recommended among others that the leadership of the department of business education should contact non-governmental organizations to sponsor media-chats where the professionals will properly create awareness for the students on the relevance, prospects and lucrativeness of secretarial education in tertiary institutions.

Key words: Sex, age, occupation remuneration, career prospect and secretarial education.