How Rajshahi became a city of schools

Rajshahi's reputation for education is not recent. It begins in 1828, when leading citizens founded a private English school in the city. The provincial government took it over in 1836 and made it a Government Zilla School; it survives as Rajshahi Collegiate School, the oldest school in Bangladesh.

In 1873 Raja Haralal Roy Bahadur of Dubalhati helped fund Rajshahi College, which became the third oldest college in the country.

The University of Rajshahi followed on 6 July 1953, the second university in Bangladesh. Rajshahi Medical College opened in 1958, the first in the north. Rajshahi Engineering College, now RUET, was founded in 1964.

Within a century and a half the city had acquired a school, a college, a university, a medical college and an engineering college — which is why students still come here from across the northern districts.