Why B.Com students need to have a background in Maths

The B.Com curriculum presupposes comfort with algebra, percentages, ratios, logarithms, and basic calculus. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto India is currently witnessing a paradox in Commerce education. Every year, lakhs of students aspiring to build careers in accounting, banking, finance, taxation, business analytics, and management enrol in B.Com programmes across thousands of colleges affiliated to central and state universities. But a growing number have never studied Maths in Classes 11 and 12 due to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and its multidisciplinary spirit.Policy in practiceWhat sounds like an inclusive policy on paper is, in practice, producing graduates who are structurally unprepared for the quantitative demands of modern commerce. The consequences of this are being felt in classrooms, in placement cells, and in the corridors of India’s banking and financial services industry. The time has come for educators, policymakers, and institutions to confront this inconvenient reality with urgency and honesty.Commerce education is fundamentally mathematical. The B. Com curriculum across the country includes subjects demanding rigorous numerical reasoning: Financial Accounting, Cost Accounting, Business Statistics, Economics, Corporate Finance, Income Tax, Auditing, and Business Analytics. These subjects presuppose comfort with algebra, percentages, ratios, logarithms, and basic calculus. Academic surveys and faculty observations consistently show that students who have not studied Maths in Class 11-12 struggle with ratio analysis, index numbers, regression, and fundamental concepts like elasticity, marginal utility, and national income aggregates.The UGC’s B.Com framework under NEP 2020 intensifies this crisis by mandating Data Analytics, Computational Finance, and Quantitative Methods as core credits. Faculty face an impossible choice: dilute the curriculum or watch unprepared students fail. Neither outcome serves the nation's educational or economic interests.New demandsDue to India’s economic transformation, the B. Com degree no longer leads to clerical roles. Today’s BFSI sector, reshaped by algorithmic trading, digital lending, GST software, and AI-driven risk assessment, demands far more. Companies expect even entry-level professionals to demonstrate Excel modelling, financial ratios, statistical forecasting, and Python proficiency.A 2024 NSDC report revealed that 38% of Commerce and Management graduates lack quantitative skills for immediate industry deployment; strongly correlated with the rise of non-Maths Commerce tracks at the Plus Two level. The pass rates of the CA Foundation level in Quantitative Aptitude have declined notably among non-Maths candidates, a trend ICAI has formally acknowledged.Addressing this crisis demands a frank acknowledgement that the current approach to Maths in Commerce education is fundamentally unsustainable, and making Commerce Maths — covering Financial Mathematics, Business Statistics, Matrices, Linear Programming, and Probability — a compulsory Higher Secondary subject for all students intending to pursue B. Com or allied programmes. Several state boards already offer or mandate Commerce Maths as a distinct paper, and early data from these states consistently indicate better performance and retention in undergraduate courses.Simultaneously, B. Com admission norms require urgent revision. Universities should introduce a minimum Maths competency as a formal eligibility criterion or at least mandate compulsory bridge or remedial modules for students without a Maths background in the first semester. The UGC, which has been admirably proactive in reforming the curriculum under NEP 2020, must take cognisance of this structural gap and issue clear and enforceable advisories.India’s ambition to become a knowledge economy and global services hub ultimately depends on the quality of its commerce and finance workforce. That workforce is built in classrooms, and that is where Maths must reclaim its essential and indispensable place in Commerce education.Views expressed in this article are personalThe writer is an Assistant Professor and a Research Supervisor at St. Thomas College (Autonomous), Thrissur, Kerala. Published - September 12, 2026 12:05 pm IST