Assam schools to start offering commerce from Class IX soon

GUWAHATI: The Board of Secondary Education, Assam (Seba) will introduce commerce as an elective subject in Classes IX from 2020.
State education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya said the introduction of commerce at the secondary level will increase the number of commerce aspirants in higher secondary classes and beyond. In Assam, the lowest number of students appear from the commerce stream in the Class XII state board exams when compared to arts and science streams.
"Earlier, in the state-board affiliated schools of Assam, students did not have any scope to study commerce at the secondary level.It was offered from Class XI. But we always felt the need to offer commerce as a subject in Classes IX and X so that it can be beneficial for the students who are willing to study commerce after matriculation," said Bhattacharya, after inaugurating the textbook on commerce for Class IX, which will be taught in the state schools from the next academic session. The inaugural event was held at Gauhati Commerce College here on Friday.
The education minister said a teachers' training programme will be held for the high school teachers before next year. The government will also ask the higher secondary school teachers to take classes on commerce in Class IX next year and in Class X from 2021, he added. Seba secretary Suranjana Senapati said the board will organize a five-day training programme for teachers from November 18 to 22 at the Seba office in Bamunimaidam, Guwahati.
Seba chairman Ramesh Chand Jain said the schools which want to offer commerce as an elective subject in Class IX from next year will not have to take any special permission. The board has planned to allocate 70 marks for the theory paper in commerce and 30 marks for practical, said Jain.