White paper on 10+2/ graduates/ undergraduates (commerce students)
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all post secondary programs up to the level of a bachelor’s degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-level university student is known as an undergraduate, while students of higher degrees are known as graduate students. Upon completion of a number of required and elective courses as part of an undergraduate program, the student would earn the corresponding degree. (In some regions, individual “courses” and the “program” collection are given other terms, such as “units” and “course”, respectively.) In some other educational systems, undergraduate education is post secondary education up to the level of a master’s degree; this is the case for some science courses in Britain and some medicine courses in Europe.
In Nigeria, undergraduate degrees (excluding Medicine, Medical Laboratory Science, Nursing, Engineering, Law and Architecture) are four-year-based courses. Medicine (MBBS) and Architecture normally take six years to complete studies while Medical Laboratory Science, Nursing, Law and Engineering courses take five years to complete studies, usually, all six years are taken to improve their chances. Undergraduate nursing degrees or diplomas usually take two to four years and sometimes 5 years to complete, whereas graduate degrees are an additional two years or more.
The South African system usually has a three-year undergraduate bachelor’s degree, with two or three majors. (There are exceptions, such as the medical qualification (MBChB), which is six years, and Engineering which is four.) A fourth year, known as an Honours year, is considered a post-graduate degree. It is usually course-driven, although may include a project or thesis.
Brazil follows the major traits of the continental European system; free public schools are available from kindergarten up to postgraduation, both as a right established in Article 6, caput of the Brazilian Constitution and as a duty of the State in Article 208, Items I, IV and V, of the Brazilian Constitution. Students choose their specific course of studies before joining the university. Admission to university is obtained by means of a competitive entrance exam known as Vestibular (a concept somewhat similar to the Baccalauréat in France). A later system introduced in 2009, adopted by most federal universities, uses the high school national examination (ENEM) result as part or a replacement of the Vestibular grade. Depending on the chosen course, upon graduating the student is granted: a technologist diploma, 3 years to complete, a bachelor’s degree’s diploma, which usually takes 4 or, in the case of Law, Veterinary, Geology and Engineering, 5 years to complete; or a professional diploma, which normally require 5 or, in the case of medicine, 6 years to complete.
In the United States, undergraduate refers to a student who is studying for a bachelor’s degree. The most common bachelor’s degrees are Bachelor of Arts (BA or AB) and Bachelor of Science (BS or SB), but other degrees such as Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Bachelor of Music (BM), Bachelor of Social Work (BSW), Bachelor of Engineering (BE), Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), and Bachelor of Architecture (BArch) are also possible. Most commonly these degrees require four years of full-time study after high school.
Unlike in the British model, degrees in law and medicine are not offered at the undergraduate level and instead are completed at a graduate level, after earning a bachelor’s degree. Neither field specifies or prefers any undergraduate major, though medical schools require a set of courses that must be taken before enrollment.
Students can also choose to attend a two-year community college before further study at a four-year college or university. In most states, community colleges are operated either by a division of the state university or by local special districts subject to guidance from a state agency. Community colleges award associate degrees of different types, some intended to prepare students to transfer to four-year institutions (e.g. Associate of Arts (AA), Associate of Science (AS)), and others intended to provide vocational skills and training for students wishing to enter into or advance in a profession. In some states considerable attention has been given to make sure that community college courses in fact prepare the students for the continuation courses they will encounter at the local college; this process of bringing courses into sequence is called articulation. Some community colleges have automatic enrollment agreements with a local college or university, where the community college provides the first two years of study and the university provides the remaining years of study, sometimes all on one campus. The community colleges award associate degrees, while universities and colleges award the bachelor’s. However, some community colleges, such as Brazosport College in Lake Jackson, Texas offer bachelor’s degrees along with associate degrees. Conversely, some universities such as the University of Delaware also award associate degrees.
In the United States, “college” and “university” are terms used differently in different states; New York’s terminology is especially confusing (see University of the State of New York). A university is usually larger than a college, and has programs at the graduate level, but the distinction is not clear-cut. Some colleges (like Smith College) award graduate degrees, for example, and some colleges are larger than some universities. Some states have requirements a college must meet before it is allowed to call itself a university. Institutions seeking to grow have pursued various steps to turn two-year junior colleges into community colleges, community colleges into four-year colleges, awarding baccalaureate degrees, sometimes while still a community college, and colleges into universities, with graduate (post-baccalaureate) programs.
A Bachelor of Commerce (abbreviated BComm or BCom; also, baccalaureates commercii) is an undergraduate degree in business, usually awarded in Canada, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ireland, New Zealand, Ghana, South Africa, Myanmar, Egypt, and additional Commonwealth countries. The degree was previously offered in the United Kingdom.
The Bachelor of Commerce degree is designed to provide students with a wide range of managerial skills, while building competence in a particular area of business (see aside). For a comparison with other business degrees, see Business education § Undergraduate education.
Most universities, therefore, plan the degree such that in addition to their major, students are exposed to general business principles, taking courses in accounting, finance, economics, business management, human resources and marketing. Programs often require foundational courses in business statistics and mathematics, and information systems.
Depending on the institution, a formal academic major may or may not be established. Regardless, a Bachelor of Commerce degree requires students to take the majority of their courses in business-related subjects, including the aside, among others.
The Honours Bachelor of Commerce (HonsBCom or BComm (Hons) or HBCom or HBComm) is further advanced. The degree has a specialization aspect, analogous to the BBA, developing the student’s business skills and/or providing in-depth knowledge of the field.
It requires additional academic courses to be completed, and usually with higher academic performance standards, and may also require a researched thesis component. It often serves as an abridgment (or entry requirement) between the undergraduate program and postgraduate programs, including the Master of Commerce (M.Com. or M.Comm.) and the Master of Business Administration (MBA) degrees.
It may consist of a four-year program or of a one-year program taken subsequent to a three-year Bachelor’s degree; the one-year program is typically focused exclusively on a single subject-area.
The curriculum generally lasts three years in Australia, New Zealand, India, Malta, South Africa, some parts of Canada, and Hong Kong. The curriculum requires four years of study in the Republic of Ireland, the majority of Canada, Egypt, Ghana, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
In South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and some universities in India, the BCom (Hons) degree is considered an additional postgraduate qualification, whereas in Malta, an additional year of study is not considered a postgraduate qualification.
The Bachelor of Commerce degree was first offered at the University of Birmingham. The University’s School of Commerce was founded by William Ashley, an Englishman from Oxford University, who was the first professor of Political Economy and Constitutional History in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Toronto. Ashley left Toronto in 1892, spent a few years at Harvard University, and then went back to England to the new University of Birmingham where he founded the School of Commerce. Ashley began the programme which was the forerunner of many other BCom degree programmes throughout the British Empire.
Eighteenth-century economists had divided the English economy into three sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. Commerce included the transport, marketing and financing of goods. The Birmingham programme in commerce included economic geography, economic history, general economics, modern languages, and accountancy.