The story
Founded by Vajiravudh on Mar 26, 1917.1
King Chulalongkorn's reforms, aimed at transforming Thailand into a modern state, demanded trained officials specialized in various fields. In 1899, the King founded the "Civil Service Training School" near the north gate of the Grand Palace. Those who graduated from the school would become royal pages. As royal pages, they learned how to manage organizations by working closely with the king, which was a traditional way to enter the Siamese bureaucracy. After serving as royal pages, they would then serve in the Ministry of Interior or other government ministries.
On 1 April 1902, the King renamed the school. It became the "Royal Pages School" (Thai: โรงเรียนมหาดเล็ก). On 1 January 1911, King Vajiravudh changed the name to "Civil Service College of King Chulalongkorn" (Thai: โรงเรียนข้าราชการพลเรือนของพระบาทสมเด็จพระจุลจอมเกล้าเจ้าอยู่หัว) as a memorial to his father and moved the school to Windsor Palace in the Pathum Wan district.
The King subsidized the construction of a university campus and organized various schools around the city into Chulalongkorn. The college offered eight majors taught by five schools including;
School of International Relations in the Royal Palace
School of Teacher Training at Baan Somdet Chao Phraya
Royal Medical College at Siriraj Hospital
School of Legal Studies
School of Mechanical Sciences at Windsor Palace
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King Rama VI realized that education should be provided not only to bureaucrats, but to all people. On 26 March 1917, the college was upgraded to "Chulalongkorn University" (Thai: จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย), and the schools were transformed into four faculties: Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Faculty of Public Administration, Faculty of Engineering, and Faculty of Medicine.
The Rockefeller Foundation reorganized the curriculum of the Faculty of Medicine. In 1923, the Faculty of Medicine became the first faculty to accept secondary school (Mattayom) graduates. The remaining faculties then followed suit. After the 1932 Revolution, the People's Party wanted legal and political studies to be independent of "royalists" so they moved the Faculty of Law and Political Science to the new Thammasat University in 1933.
In 1938, Chulalongkorn University's Preparatory School was founded to provide pre-collegiate education to students. Those who managed to enter the university had to spend two years in the Preparatory School before going on to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Preparatory School, however, ceased to be a university-owned preparatory school in 1947 and became the independent Triam Udom Suksa School. Later, the university established Chulalongkorn University Demonstration School (CUD) as a laboratory school for primary and secondary education for the Faculty of Education.
From Wikipedia’s article on Chulalongkorn University, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4