There has been a historic growth in the fields of commerce, industry and science in the recent past. This growth demands a specialised education in various fields concerned with science, commerce and industry.
The dependence of commerce on science has been exemplified by pointing out the fact that “the management side of commerce is wholly dependent upon computers. In India to the computer is fully accepted by the business.
Computer education has been introduced in the schools in India and with this it is expected that the school will become the machines of commerce education. However, at present commerce education in schools has not become so advanced that computers are used at school stage in book-keeping or accountancy”. In most of the advanced countries the commerce education is totally computerized.
During the last quarter of the last century, with rapid advances in technology more and more attention was paid towards the scientific management side of the business. A number of laws were passed by governments and so a need was felt for professionals in the field.
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This created demand for professionalized commercial education. It is said, “Education of commerce was started by private commercial institutions. To start with only book-keeping was taught. We find Munims used to train junior Munims under their apprenticeship. Later on private commercial institutes started teaching of book-keeping and accountancy”.
For such an education, Madras became a pioneer state where it started in 1886. The Government of Madras laid the foundation of commerce education by setting-up commercial institute in Madras. Two other institutions were established during the next ten years (by 1896). One was set-up at Calicut and the other in the state of Kerala.
In the beginning of this century Calcutta Presidency College also introduced the teaching of commerce (1903). By about that time it was also introduced in Delhi. One more commercial institution was started in Bombay in 1912. At the graduate level the commerce education was introduced in 1913 in Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics in Bombay.
In 1920’s (1921-22) the first Fiscal Commission was set-up and this commission made certain important recommendations In the light of these recommendations some major improvements were visible in various industrial fields especially in the field of iron and steel industry, sugar industry, tea industry, cotton industry and jute industry.
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A very rapid growth of commercial educational institutions was observed during 1920-40. The Indian Institute of Bankers was established in 1926, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India was established in 1934. Later on in 1944, Institute of Works and Cost Accountants of India was established. In 1955, the Federation of Insurance Institutes was established.
To cope with the increasing demand for the trained people to transact commercial and governmental jobs, it became essential to introduce the commerce education at school level.
To start with the teaching of short-hand and typing was introduced in Government schools and aided schools and afterwards the teaching of commerce was introduced in such schools. Now the commerce education has been included in the school curriculum.
According to Dr. Khan, “Commerce education got some impetus in conjunction with the growth in the volume of the business. The constantly growing demand for typists, stenographers, book-keepers and clerical workers made commerce curriculum a very desirable addition to secondary school programme. The tremendous spurt in commerce and industry with the planned economic development of the country made the possession of commercial competencies essential to commercial career.
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Now, there is a great demand for office workers who can type readily and accurately, take and transcribe notes quickly and correctly, keep financial records and operate business machines effectively. In addition it has been discovered that type writing and other commercial subjects can make valuable contributions to the general education of the students”.
In the new scheme of education (I.C. 10+2+3 pattern of education) sufficient attention has been paid to commerce education in Indian schools. In addition to shorthand and typing some more subjects that have been included for teaching in commerce are as follows:
(I) Book-keeping and Accountancy,
(II) Commercial mathematics,
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(III) Sectarian practice,
(IV) Commercial English / Hindi,
(V) Commercial Law,
(VI) Industrial law,
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(VII) Taxation,
(VIII) Income Tax,
(IX) Salesmanship,
(X) Applied economics,
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(XI) Public relations, and
(XII) Advertising.
The teaching of Commerce subjects starts from XI class and in class XII the syllabus is quite advanced. Many a commercial subjects are also taught in vocational institutes.
At present commerce education is considered as good education because of the distinct advantages that a commerce student has over his counter-part in the arts faculty. It is believed that a commerce student not only achieves just training and perfection, but also a general professional intelligence.