The University of Mumbai, informally known as Mumbai University (MU) is a collegiate public state university located in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It offers bachelors, masters and Doctoral courses, as well as diplomas and certificates in many disciplines like the Arts, Commerce, Science, Medical and Engineering. The language of instruction for most courses is English.
The University of Mumbai was established in 1857. The university has two campuses across Mumbai (Kalina Campus and Fort Campus) and two in the MMR region, one of them being Thane Sub Campus and the other being Kalyan Sub Campus. The Fort campus carries out administrative work only. Several institutes in Mumbai previously affiliated to the university are now autonomous institutes or universities.
The University of Mumbai is one of the largest universities in the world. The university in 2013 had 711 affiliated colleges. Ratan Tata is the appointed head of Mumbai University's advisory council.
History
In accordance with "Wood's despatch", drafted by Sir Charles Wood in 1854, The University of Bombay was established in 1857 after presentation of a petition from the Bombay Association to the British colonial government in India.[6] The University of Mumbai was modeled on similar universities in the United Kingdom, specifically the University of London.:188
The first departments established were the Faculty of Arts at Elphinstone College in 1835 and the Faculty of Medicine at Grant Medical College in 1845.[6] Both colleges existed before the university was founded and surrendered their degree-granting privileges to the university. The first degrees awarded in 1862 were Bachelor of Arts and Licentiate in Medicine.
Initially, the Town Hall in Mumbai was used as the university's offices.
Cornelia Sorabji, who later studied law at Somerville College becoming Oxford's first female law student and India's first female advocate, was the university's first female graduate in 1888.
Until 1904, the university only conducted examinations, awarded affiliations to colleges, developed curricula and produced guidelines for colleges developing curricula.[6] Teaching departments, research disciplines and post-graduate courses were introduced from 1904 and several additional departments were established. After India achieved independence in 1947, the functions and powers of the university were re-organised under The Bombay University Act of 1953.[9] The name of the University was changed from University of Bombay to University of Mumbai in 1996.
In 1949, student enrollment was 42,272 with 80 affiliated colleges. By 1975, these numbers had grown to 156,190 and 114 respectively.
