To trace the history of Jadavpur University is to trace a part of India’s freedom movement, at least from the Swadeshi Movement onwards. It was 1905 -1906.
Bengal stood divided. The times were feverish.
The hegemony of the British establishment had to be challenged. Education had to play a new role in this changed scenario. It had to become a new form of resistance through which the emergent nationalist spirit could be propagated. With this in mind the National Council of Education (NCE) came into being.

Its primary aim was to impart education - literary, scientific and technical on national lines exclusively under national control. To achieve self-reliance, through education. The foundation of the NCE was made possible by the munificence - scholarly as well as monetary - of the likes of Raja Subodh Chandra Mallik , Brajendra Kishore Roychowdhury of Gouripur as well as Sir Rash Behari Ghosh (first President of NCE), poet Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo Ghosh.

In 1910 the Society for the Promotion of Technical Education in Bengal which looked after Bengal Technical Institute (which later became College of Engineering and Technology, Bengal) was amalgamated to NCE. NCE henceforth looked after the College of Engineering and Technology, Bengal which by 1940 was virtually functioning as a University. After Independence, the Government of West Bengal, with the concurrence of the Govt. of India, enacted the necessary legislation to establish Jadavpur University on the 24th of December 1955.

Now Jadavpur University has successfully established itself as a foremost Indian University with a vast repertoire of courses offered, an enviable list of faculty members and has come to be known for its commitment towards advanced study and research.