Jagannath University

Jagannath University (JnU) is one of the leading public universities in the country. It is a government financed public university located in Sadarghat, Dhaka the capital of Bangladesh. It is near by the river Buriganga and very closer to Bahadur Shah Park, Islampur and Laxmibazar. ‘Education, Faith and Discipline’ is the motto of the JnU. The mission of the university is to make the institution a centre of excellence for creating useful and responsible citizens of Bangladesh.

The university has a history of more than 150 years. That started in 1858 when Dhaka Brahma School was founded. The name Jagannath School was given by Kishorilal Chowdhury who took over the school in 1872 and renamed it after his father.

In 1884, it was raised to a second grade college. The college started with 48 students and within five years, the roll raised to 396. With the establishment of University of Dhaka in 1921, it stopped admission to 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 and upgraded it into a postgraduate college. In 1982, the college closed its programmes at the intermediate level. It introduced evening shifts in 1992.

It was transformed into Jagannath University in 2005 by passing a bill named Jagannath University Act-2005 in the national parliament. Prof Mijanur Raman is the current Vice Chancellor of the JnU. At present, the JnU has 36 departments under seven faculties. More than six hundred teachers are engaged in imparting quality education to around 23,000 students in Honors, Masters, MPhil and PhD programmes.

For the welfare of the students, the university has build  twelve halls in different areas of old Dhaka for  but nine of them are now not in control of the university. The university authorities have a plan to build a new hall named 'Banga Bandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Hall'. Besides, it has already completed preliminary steps to build Begum Fazilatunnesa Mujib Hall for female students.