Opened in 1913, the house of the Malay noble of Taiping, Ngah Ibrahim served as the first teacher training college in Malaya until it was shifted to Tanjung Malim nine years later and given the name of the Sultan of Perak at that time.

[2] The history of UPSI as we know it today dates to 1922 when the university was then known as the Sultan Idris Training College (SITC).

The initial instructional regime required students to complete a three-year course of training where traditional skills and arithmetic were taught.

In 1987, MPSI was upgraded and renamed Institut Perguruan Sultan Idris (English: Sultan Idris Teachers Institute) or IPSI and new courses were made available leading to a degree conferred by Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (today known as Universiti Putra Malaysia).

The main campus is on a 300-acre site in the town of Tanjung Malim that straddles both the Perak and Selangor state border.