The short and fast of it
CHENNAI: The steady tapping of metal on paper reaches our ears as we enter the quaint premises of the Stenographers’ Guild tucked away in a quiet street away from the bustle of T Nagar. To all those who believed that typewriting and shorthand had been swept to the past, the Guild, the oldest institution in the State dedicated to the art of stenography, maintains its reputation as a lifeline and job provider to thousands who pass through its doors today.
City Express visited the Guild to see how it stands today.
Stenography, the art of writing in shorthand and transcribing using a typewriter, had been in use in the past century in government offices, courts, and for secretarial work.
Set up in 1937 and inaugurated by C Rajagopalachari, the Stenographers’ Guild initially intented to promote stenography, later evolving into a first-rate training institution, providing employment for nearly 3.5 lakh people since its inception. It is also a non-profit organisation, charging a nominal fee and relying instead on charitable and philanthropic donations for expenses.
Surprisingly, despite the advent of technology, it is still much in demand. “Stenography is an art and for that reason, it cannot become extinct. It’s always needed in one form or the other,” avers S R Sivasubramaniam, president of the Guild. He attributes this to the boom in other professions apart from IT after the recession in 2008, when a lot of engineering graduates started losing jobs and therefore turned to other forms of employment. “Here we have employers who call on a daily basis asking for capable stenographers, personal secretaries and such.
The going rate for a trained, mid-level stenographer is Rs 35,000 and there are people willing to pay that for skilled people!”
And this is not limited to the government sector alone but private companies as well. The students of the Guild have got placed through the TNPSC, secretarial posts to ministers and officials, judicial assistants to judges and so on.
Though it’s an institution steeped in history, it still has kept pace with the times to maintain its standards of training. “In the 1990’s when the personal computer started to gain popularity, we also introduced computer courses to supplement our regular courses,” says Sivasubramaniam.
“Today, we teach essentials like MS Office, Tally, C++ and others, apart from the shorthand and typewriting courses.”
The students that frequent the Guild are — those aspiring for government jobs in the state and central sectors, and people from other professions such as journalism and law. There are higher and lower grades in shorthand and typewriting, each in Tamil and English, and accomplishing all four grades will virtually guarantee the bearer a government job. The Guild also runs classes free for transgenders and disabled people.
“My mother had learnt shorthand in Hyderabad because of which she was able to get a stenographer’s job when we moved here,” says Mehnaaz, a Class 10 student who has been enrolled at the Guild. “I’m here to learn MS Office, Tally, shorthand and spoken English, so that I can be better equipped for a job when I leave school,” she says.
Apart from these, advocates and journalists frequent The Guild to learn shorthand that can help them in their profession. “Shorthand is a must for reporters covering proceedings in the Assembly and Parliament,” says Sivasubramaniam. The Guild has adopted Pitman’s shorthand as the preferred form of shorthand out of the nearly 54 different forms. It is also affiliated to Cambridge University as a Cambridge Affiliation Centre for offering training and sponsoring candidates for exams in Secretarial Skills and Information Technology.
“The only threat to the post of the stenographer has been the advent of voice and speech recognition systems,” he rues. However, these technologies have drawbacks. “It takes nearly a month for such software to sync 75% with the voice and characteristics of the speaker. And even then, the tendency for error and mispronunciation is high. So a human element is still preferred in that context.”
However, being non-profit, the Guild has been struggling financially to overcome the effects of the 2015 floods and Cyclone Vardah.
For details visit: www.stenold.org or call: 24342421
over the years...
The Guild has had its share of recognition, with everyone from prominent ministers, Governors, and judges of the High Court visiting the premises and appreciating its work. Descendants of Isaac Pitman (creator of Pitman’s Shorthand) have visited this place, including Margaret Miller, his great grand-daughter, who dedicated a bust of Pitman to the Guild, which still stands.