University

[Kirsty]

Oldest University in the world?

[rekstout]

The University of Life and it's associated School of Hard Knocks

There are many claimants, the questions is how to define a University - Bologna, Italy or Al-Azhar near Cairo, Egypt are the two prime candidates with dates of 10th or 11th century

[incitatus]

That first sentence leads me to believe that rekstout is my mother in law. Id heard Bologna, but definition is a problem...what of the academy? or is it existent ones you want. The religious schools go back a very long way, of course...and the romans had military colleges...

[indobrit]

Nalanda, in India, has had a continuous existence for some fifteen centuries as an institution of the sort that would now be described as a university.