Bachelor of Office Management and Secretarial Studies
Degree awarded: BOMSS(Hons)
Duration: 3 Years full-time
Bachelor of Planning and Community Development is a three-year degree programme run on a semester system where the Academic Year constitutes of two semesters. The whole course takes six (6) semesters and a semester constitutes 17 weeks with 15 weeks for teaching and 2 weeks for examination.
Course Description
The recent developments World over, due to technological advancement have made the World become a global village. This, therefore, calls for all participants to respond to these changes if they are to compete favorably in this highly competitive market. There is a serious need to train human resources that have competences at the gate.
The programme is set up to meet the needs of managerial, administrative, and secretarial personnel in public and private offices. It is composed of a combination of professional courses, which lead students into becoming professional secretaries as well as managers. Human resource development has taken the center stage as a result of privatization and globalization necessitating that there is demand for institutions to train people for skills development in both Secretarial and Management.
The Bachelor of Office Management and Secretarial Studies has been taught in the Faculty of Business and Development Studies following employers’ and the general public’s outcry about poor managerial skills, lack of editing skills, administrative skills, public relations, and information organization by the existing secretaries. In addition, international organizations require the command of at least two foreign languages including English.
On completion of the Programme, graduates have always been equipped with concepts, methods, techniques and tools that allow them to contribute towards the competitiveness of Government Ministries, International Organisations, the Private Sector, and self-employment.
The programme course content has been based on the need to produce highly trained and skills-oriented graduates to manage Government and Private Sector offices and to create self-employment.
Programme objectives
The programme aims at training both academic and skills-oriented graduates who can become job creators. The degree programme offers courses which will enable a graduate to:
- Acquire efficient communication skills needed in all aspects of life.
- Establish and manage a secretarial bureau of international standards.
- Work in a Foreign Service as a bilingual/multilingual secretary who can provide translation and interpretation skills between the foreign office and their clients.
- Meet the demands of modern technology of using the computer to expedite work through manipulation of the computer communication services.
- Provide secretarial services to international conferences, which may require manipulation of Kiswahili, French and German Key Boards.
- Manage offices and be capable of making decisions in the absence of their executives.
- To produce highly trained secretaries who have skills that fit in the modern office environment and their challenging roles in the modern world.
- To train secretaries in the acquisition of managerial, administrative, communication and organizational skills.
- To avail training or upgrading opportunities to certificate and Diploma holders in the field of Secretarial Studies.
Graduation requirements
In order to qualify for the award of a degree of Bachelor of Office Management and Secretarial Studies of Bishop Stuart University, a student must have satisfied the University Senate in the following:
- Must have been a registered student for the prescribed six semesters of this programme.
- Must have successfully completed the prescribed number of credit units for this programme which include internship/field attachment
Retakes
- A candidate who fails the examination, having failed not more than three courses shall be permitted to retake the examination in the failed course(s) and re-write the coursework.
- A candidate who fails the examination in more than three courses may be permitted to retake examinations in the failed courses provided that he/she does not proceed to the courses of the following semester.
- The candidate will retake the course and rewrite the coursework in a corresponding semester when he/she failed.
To pass a retake examination a candidate must obtain at least 50% or 2.0 grade point of the marks in each subject.
- Retake courses will be assessed out of 100%.
- A failed course can only be retaken twice.
- Retaken courses shall be indicated on the Transcript as “RT”
Grading & Classification of Awards:
| Marks | Letter Grade | Grade Point | GPA | Explanation | Classification |
| 80-100 | A | 5.0 | 4.4 – 5.0 | Excellent | First Class (1) |
| 70 – 79 | B+ | 4.0 | 4.0 – 4.3 | Very good | Second Class Upper division (2:1) |
| 60 – 69 | B | 3.0 | 3.0 – 3.9 | Good | Second Class Lower division (2:1) |
| 50 – 59 | C | 2.0 | 2.0 – 2.9 | Satisfactory | Pass (3) |
| 0 – 49 | D | 1.0 | 0 – 1.9 | Failure |
Progression
Normal Progress
Normal progress shall occur when a student has passed the examinations in all the courses she/he had registered for in a particular semester.
Probationary Progress
A student who has failed three and less courses shall be allowed to progress probationary to the next Semester/Academic Year but shall still retake the Course(s) he/she had failed.