Maharaja's College, Ernakulam

The Maharaja's College is an Indian government college of higher education located in Ernakulam, Kerala, India. Located in the heart of the city Kochi, it is spread over a campus of 25acres on the banks of Vembanad Lake. Blanketed by tall and rare species of trees, its campus features a mix of old and modern architecture and covers a total area of 19,525 m², providing infrastructural facilities for the 19 departments of the college.HistoryThis multidisciplinary centre of higher learning had its humble beginnings as a single room English school started by the Royal Kingdom of Cochin in 1845 "to impart such instruction to the students as would enable them to converse with Englishmen without the aid of an interpreter". The school was upgraded to a college in 1875 and in June 1925 the college acquired its present name. The college provided instruction in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Zoology, History and Economics; it was affiliated with Madras University. At that time there were two hostels and physical education, literary and science associations functioning in full swing. Sir C. V. Raman and Dr S. Radhakrishnan were among the speakers at the Golden Jubilee celebrations in 1925.The first PG course was started in 1947 in the Department of Chemistry, which already had research facilities holding to M.Sc and Ph.D. Following the integration of Cochin and Travancore states, the college was transferred from Madras to Travancore University in 1949. The student body grew from 500 in 1925 to 2,802 in 1998; the teaching faculty saw a parallel increase from 21 to 195. The government of Kerala recognised it as a Centre of Excellence in the state and the University Grants Commission awarded the College with Potential for Excellence (CPE) status based on the NAAC Accreditation results. In 2014, UGC awarded Autonomous status to the college.