After dragging its feet for long, M S University's Faculty of Commerce has finally decided to adopt choice based credit system (CBCS) from the forthcoming academic year. The university's biggest faculty will also offer more choices of specializations for students.

The faculty took these decisions during a faculty board meeting on Saturday.

"We have decided to introduce CBCS for first year Bachelor of Commerce (BCom) students from academic year 2012-13. The system will be progressively adopted for second and third BCom," Faculty of Commerce dean professor Parimal Vyas told TOI on Sunday.

In terms of specializations so far, BCom students could take up specializations in marketing, human resource, accountancy and banking.

Now, students will be able to take up three more specializations. The Department of Co-operative Management and Rural Studies will offer specialization in Rural Entrepreneurship and Management and the Department of Business Economics two specializations - Financial Economics and Open Economy and International Business.

Under the present semester system, in order to get a bachelor's degree a student has to earn 108 credits from 36 courses (subjects/papers) that he/she pursues during the three years of bachelors. Now, as per Gujarat government guidelines for CBCS, a student will have to earn 120 credits from total 40 papers to get a BCom degree.

"A first year BCom student will have to earn credits from 12 subjects including four core compulsory courses and eight core foundation courses. Similarly, a second year BCom student will have to earn credits from 10 core compulsory courses, one core elective (specialization) course and one inter-disciplinary course while a third year B Com student will have to take up eight core compulsory courses, one core elective (specialization), one inter-disciplinary course and one open elective course," said Vyas.

Also, Department of Commerce and Business Management will be introducing a paper on business ethics and retailing management and Department of Accounting and Financial Management will be introducing two papers on accounting and finance for services and income tax return preparation.

"We will be adding inter-disciplinary papers like developing professional skills in English and soft skills with the support of Department of English while papers like statistics for economics and finance and management decision theory will come from Department of Statistics," said Vyas. "In third year, students can also take up English for competitive exams and introduction to English literature or subjects like statistics for market analysis."