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Jagannath University is situated in the
southern part of the city of Dhaka near the
Buriganga. This prestigious
educational establishment has a history of
about 150 years which started in 1858 when Dhaka Brahma School was founded in 1858 by Dinanath Sen, Prabhaticharan Roy,
Anathbandhu Mallik and Brajasundar Kaitra.
The name Jagannath school was given by
Kishorilal Chowdhury, the Zamindar of Baliadi who took
over the school in 1872 and renamed it after
his father's name. In 1884, it was raised to
a second grade college. Law was one of the
first courses introduced in the college. A
common management committee administered the
school and college until 1887, when the
school section was separated to form an
independent school named Kishore Jubilee
School. It is now known as K L Jubilee
School. The administration of the college
was transferred to a board of trustees in
1907. In the following year, it became a
first grade college.
The college started with only 48 students
and in five years, the roll raised to 396.
In 1910, Raja Manmath Roy Chowdhury, the
zamindar of Santosh,
tangail affiliated the
Pramath-Manmath College of Tangail with
Jagannath College.It was known as the best
equipped private college in Dhaka as early
as 1910. With the establishment of Dhaka
University in 1921 the college had to stop
admission in Degree courses and was renamed
Jagannath Intermediate College. This status
was changed after 28 years in 1949, when it
reopened Degree classes. The college was
taken over by the government in 1968.
Jagannath College opened honours and masters
programmes in 1975. That year the government
once again took over the college and
upgraded it into a postgraduate college. In
1982, the college closed its programmes of
intermediate level.The
college introduced evening shifts in 1992.The
college was transformed into the Jagannath
University in 2005. At present the
University has 22 departments under 4
faculties. The faculties are Science, Arts,
Business Studies and Social Science. Now 271
teachers are engaged in providing quality
education of around 27000 students. on
diverse areas.
The teachers and students of the college
took active part in the
Language
Movement of the early 1950s,
the mass movements of the 1960s and the
War
of
Liberation of the country in 1971.
The college produced tens of thousands
graduates. Many of them have become famous
at home and abroad. Noted among the alumni
of the college are
sufi motahar hosen (poet), Abdul Hamid
(sports organiser and sports journalist),
Bhabatosh Dutta (economist), Premendra Mitra
(writer and poet), AR Yusuf (Bar-at-Law,
State Minister of Bangladesh in early
1980s), A KMA Rouf (artist), Anisuzzaman
(educationist, researcher), and Brozen Das
(swimmer, the first Indian to swim across
English Channel).
The Management of University is striving
to make this establishment as a center of
excellence for creating successful and
productive citizens of Bangladesh.
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