Patna University is the Seventh Oldest university in India. It is the First university in Bihar. Established in the year 1917.
As long as Bihar was attached to Bengal, there was only one college of Bihar, the Patna College, which was maintained by the State Government. Patna, being then merely a divisional town, did not naturally recieve the same amount of attention as the Presidency College of Calcutta. Government help was lavished on the Presidency College of Calcutta to detriment of other Government colleges. In 1911, by the Royal proclamation at Delhi, Bihar and Orissa were carved out into a separate province. This provided a strong impetus to higher education in Bihar. The need to have a separate University at Patna for advancing, learning, developing culture, cultivating science and fostering arts was strongly felt.
It was also necessary for Bihar to have a thorough scientific training for making commercial exploitation of mineral and agriculture wealth of the province possible and to develop various branches of education for the renaissance of the ancient culture of the country. An important step toward the achievement of these objectives and development of higher education was the establishement of a separate university at Patna, the Patna University in 1917 .
The Patna University is located in the bank of holy river the Ganga.
At the time of its inauguration, the Patna University possessed only Six colleges in the whole of Bihar and Orissa, teahcing upto degree standard in either Arts or Science or both. These were Patna College, Bihar National College ( famous as B. N. College) at Patna, the Greer Bhumihar Brahmin College at Muzaffarpur, the Tej Narayan Jubilee College at Bhagalpur, the St. Columba's College at Hazaribagh and the Diamond Jubilee College of Munger (affiliated only upto Intermediate standard in Arts). Besides these there were a Law College and a Teacher's Training Collere at Patna.
Before 1912, there was no provision for post-graduate teaching in any subject except History which was taught in the Patna College. This college, the first educational institution in Bihar, was affiliated to the Calcutta University in the usual Arts subjects upto B.A. - Honours standard and in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics upto B.Sc.-Hons. degree.
The establishment of Patna University created the immediate necessity for increasing the very limited facilities for post-graduate studies. A scheme of establishing M.A. and M.Sc. classes in English, History, Economics, the classical languages (Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic), Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry was approved by the senate of the Patna University in December 1918 and the teaching commenced in Patna College fro July 1919.
The progress of education was so rapid after the separation of Bihar and Orissa from Bengal, that the need was left to provide for separate facilities and more accomodation in the college maintained by the Government.
In the year 1928, the science education was detaiched from Patna College after opening of Science College, Patna. The birth of Patna Science College was an important milestone on the path of progress of higher educationin Bihar. Science classes were attached to Patna College, moved to a group of new building in July 1927 and the Patna Science College was formally opened by theViceroy, Lord Irwin in 1928. Over Ten Lacs were spent on the construction of the college.
Presently following colleges / units of Patna university are engaged in teaching activities: -
- Patna College
- Science College
- Vanijya Mahavidyalaya
- Bihar College of Engineering
- Bihar National College
- Teacher's Training College
- Magadh Mahila College
- Womens Training College
- Patna Womens College
- Patna Medical College
- Patna Dental College
- Patna Arts and Craft College
- Institute of Library and Information Science
- Directorate of Distance Education (DDE), Patna University
