BUSINESS EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS - TRENDS AND PROSPECTS

 INTRODUCTION

History of Commerce Education in India dates back to 1886 when it was introduced for the first time in our country. In February 1895, the Government of India opened a Commerce school in Calicut and since then by stages commerce education has become part and parcel of our school system in a variety of ways.

Between 1947 to 1953, commerce was taught at the middle, high school and intermediate level. While at the middle and high schools, it was taught as an optional subject, at the intermediate level, commerce was established more as a stream. Between 1954 to 1974, under the higher secondary scheme, Commerce was included as a stream of subjects for classes IX, X and XI.

From 1975 onwards, Commerce programmes were diversified at +2 level. Both Academic and Vocational streams approved by the CBSE had commerce based subjects.

Commerce based vocational subjects aim at providing the students with essential occupational background and technical knowledge so as to make them more employment worthy or enable them to be self-employed and become effective agents of industrial and economic growth. The packages offered under Commerce & Business group in the vocational stream are-

1. Office Secretaryship

2. Stenography

3. Accountancy and Auditing

4. Marketing and Salesmanship

5. Purchasing and Storekeeping

6. Banking

Each of these packages consist of three papers each of which has the inbuilt component of on-the-job training/Practical training to provide necessary exposure to students of real life experience of a particular job/trade.

The Academic Stream, on the other hand, offers two Commerce based subjects at senior secondary level-

1. Business studies

2. Accountancy

Two other subjects, namely, Insurance and Management, have been recently discontinued from the academic stream owing to their declining popularity.

The syllabus in Business Studies for class XII comprises of two parts, Part I ("Principles and Functions of Management") is compulsory for all students while Part II is optional.

The optional part of the syllabus offers three major units out of which students are to choose

anyone unit depending on their interests and aptitude. A detailed study of this syllabus is given elsewhere in this booklet.

CBSE has undertaken this study to review the syllabus in Business Studies at Sr. Sec. level considering the following three aspects-

1. Emerging trends in business education the world over

Business education is experiencing changes and shifts in emphasis since the time it was introduced. Initially the frame work of the syllabus in commerce education was provided by Economics. Then in USA, Commerce education was renamed business education with a view to providing greater flexibility and broader perspective to human mind to cope with the growing complexity of business environment and its rapidly changing character. With increasing market competition and growing organisational problems the emphasis now is more on managerial aspects of business.

The proposed study intends to analyse the Business Studies Syllabuses prescribed by different State Education Boards of India and being offered in different senior schools, and Business courses being offered in undergraduate universities in the major English speaking counties of the west with the purpose of identifying the trend in business education the world over. This will facilitate a comparative analysis of the various courses of studies with the CBSE syllabus in Business Studies under review.

2. Impact of Economic Policies and plans of the Government on production, exchange and other allied services

Since July 1991, the Govt. of India has initiated policies aimed at, liberalisation of the economy and this has made a significant difference in the Business world. The proposed study intends to review the syllabus in the light of the major changes taking place in the Indian business scene.

3. Linkage to higher education

Recently the syllabus in Commerce at undergraduate levels particularly in Delhi university, has been thoroughly revised. The proposed study intends to review the current undergraduate syllabus in Commerce so as to examine the relevance of the Sr. Secondary syllabus in providing the necessary linkage to higher education.