The History of Education

The history of Education:

University (The world’s first university)

Takshashila (Taxila)

Around 2700 years ago, as early as 700 BCE there existed a giant University at Takshashila, located in the northwest region of India.

Founded in the 5th Century A.D., Nalanda is known as the ancient seat of learning. 2,000 Teachers and 10,000 Students from all over the Buddhist world lived and studied at Nalanda, the first Residential International University of the World.

Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, is generally considered to be the oldest university in the world. It was founded roughly the same time as the city of Cairo, in 969 AD. The first lecture was delivered in 975 AD.

Like many centers of learning, Al-Azhar University was originally intended as a place of worship and religious instruction. The mosque at Al-Azhar is one of the most famous in the Muslim world, and is still considered the seat of Sunni Islamic study.

The university pioneered systems of advanced academic instruction with its hierarchy of regular instructors and visiting professors. Its history follows the turbulent rise of the Islamic Empire, replete with political revolutions and competing religious philosophies. While Al-Azhar University has a storied history of religious instruction, it also boasts a robust secular curriculum, offering advanced degrees in engineering and medicine.

Europe's oldest university was founded in 1088 in the northern Italian city of Bologna. The United States’ oldest university, Harvard, opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1636, not long after the first English colonists arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

“There can no longer be any real doubt that both Islam and Christianity owe the foundations of both their mystical and their scientific achievements to Indian initiatives".
- Philip Rawson (British Orientalist)