West Bengal Pioneering Education since Centuries

Kolkata has played a pioneering role in the development of the modern education system in India. Western models of education came to India through Kolkata. Many of the first schools and colleges were established by the missionaries and reformists. Sir William Jones established the Asiatic Society in 1784 for promoting oriental studies. People like Ram Mohan Roy, David Hare, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Shashi Bhusan Chatterjee, and William Carey played a leading role in the setting up of modern schools and colleges in the city. The Fort William College was established in 1800. The Hindu College was established in 1817. In 1855 the Hindu College was renamed as the Presidency College.

William Carey established the Srerampore College in Srerampore City (30 km from Calcutta), 1818. It went on to become India's first modern university in 1827 when it was incorporated by a Royal Charter as a Danish University. Although it had the charter, it was not technically a university in the modern sense of that term.The Sanskrit College was established in 1824. Reverend Alexander Duff of the Church of Scotland established the General Assembly's Institution in 1830 and later the Free Church Institution in 1844, which were later merged to form what is now known as the Scottish Church College, Calcutta. These institutions played a significant role in what came to be known as the Young Bengal Movement and the Bengal Renaissance. La Martiniere Calcutta was established in 1836. John Bethune established a school for Indian girls in 1850 at a time when women's education was frowned upon in the society. The Bethune College for girls was set up by him in 1879.

The oldest medical school in Asia, the Calcutta Medical College was set up in 1835. In 1857, the University of Calcutta was established as the first full-fledged multi-disciplinary university in south Asia. It was modelled on the lines of the University of London. Today it is amongst the largest multidisciplinary universities of India and offers some of the widest number of academic disciplines for study. In 1856 technical and engineering education came with the establishment of a civil engineering college / department. This setup went through various reorganisations to finally become the Bengal Engineering College in 1921. The Jesuit administered St Xavier's College was established in 1860. In 1906, the partition of Bengal led to widespread nationalistic and anti British feelings. This led to the setting up of the National Council of Education, Bengal. This later on became the Jadavpur University in 1955. The nation's first homeopathy college was established in the city in 1880. In 1883 Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu became the first women graduates from the University of Calcutta.In the process, they became the first female graduates of the British Empire. Kadambini went on to become the first female physician trained in the Western system of medicine in South Asia. The Science College was established in 1917. The first blind school came into being in 1925.

IIT Kharagpur