At
present there are approximately 700 Universities and 35,500 affiliated colleges
with 20 million student enrollment. The four top fields of study are Arts,
Science, Commerce, and Engineering. Commerce education is been started in India
at around 1886. The growth of this educational department is tremendous. In
1950 the enrollment of students in different Universities was 0.36 Lakhs and
now it is approximately 20 Lakhs. Approximately 18% of total student community
pursues commerce. Students pursuing M.Com after their B.Com is only about 8%
and other people get saturated at bachelor degrees only. Even the number of
girl students pursuing commerce is increasing.
"Commerce
is that part of business which is concerned with the exchange of goods and
services and includes all those activities which directly or indirectly
facilitate that exchange." -James Stephenson
Leverett.
S. Lyen defined commerce education as "any education which a business man
has and which makes him a better businessman, is for him business education, no
matter whether it was obtained in the walls of a school or not".
Importance
of commerce –
1)
Increasing human
wants are judged properly with commerce
2)
It increases the
standard of living
3)
It links
producers and consumers
4)
It generates
employment opportunities
5)
Increases
national income and wealth
6)
Increases
International trade concept
For
many years the business community all over the world could not realize the
importance of commerce education. But few intellectuals made the changes by
knowing the importance of it. Even Government has taken more pro-active
initiatives to improve the reach-ability of commerce education to the students throughout
the districts. More and more commerce
institutes are being established now-a-days. Commercial education in theory of
typing, short hands, book keeping, business methods, accountancy and banking is
now important at various levels. But one feels that the due importance is not
given to this stream of studies.. There should be more opportunities for higher
education in the field of commerce education then them available at present.