Mita Mukherjee
The West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education has decided to design new syllabuses in mathematics for students studying arts and commerce in XI -XII which will be different from the existing pure mathematics syllabus and also easier than the conventional mathematics paper.
Students studying arts with mathematics as a compulsory paper will be allowed to opt “basic mathematics” and commerce students will be able to opt ” commercial mathematics”, sources in the council said.
In the existing system, students of any stream – science, arts and commerce can choose conventional pure mathematics as a compulsory paper. But students of all the three streams are required to study only pure mathematics.
The Council is likely to offer the option to the arts and commerce students to choose basic or commercial mathematics from the next 2025-26 academic session , Chiranjib Bhattacharjee, the Council president said
However, if commerce students want to study pure mathematics, they can do so. But, this option will not be allowed to arts students. It will be mandatory for arts students to study “basic mathematics.”
” We had been noticing that many meritorious students who study math in certain combination of subjects with an aim to do higher studies in a particular area failed to do so because of not performing well in math. The two new courses will give such students an opportunity to pursue higher studies in their chosen fields,” Bhattacharjee told EducationWorld.
For example, several universities do not allow students to study B.Sc in economics if they do not score a certain percentage marks in mathematics at the plus two level. They are forced to study BA in economics for not fulfilling the criteria. The two new courses will enable the students to avoid such difficulties.
According to the council president, the existing mathematics syllabus covers a lot of topics many of which are tough for arts and commerce students and it may not be necessary for them to learn the topics in detail. The new mathematics subjects will be designed in such a way that they suit the requirement of such students.
Arts students will be taught only the basic concepts whereas the commercial mathematics course will contain the basic along with statistics component. The council, according to the president has started the process of reviewing the syllabuses of all subjects taught in the higher secondary school including mathematics.
