What is direction of conventional and electic current?

A flow of positive charges gives the same electric current, and has the same effect in a circuit, as an equal flow of negative charges in the opposite direction. Since current can be the flow of either positive or negative charges, or both, a convention for the direction of current which is independent of the type of charge carriers is needed. The direction of conventional current is arbitrarily defined to be the same as the direction of the flow of positive charges. In metals, which make up the wires and other conductors in most electrical circuits, the positive charges are immobile, and the charge carriers are electrons. Because the electrons carry negative charge, their motion in a metal conductor is in the direction opposite to that of conventional current. read less

Conventional current flows from the positive terminal to the negative terminal. This is because they thought that electricity was the flow of positively charged ions. The discovery of the electron, however, made people realise that electricity is the flow of electrons, which are negatively charged. The field of electrics was already set up for the flow of "positive charge" and since it make no difference on circuit analysis, the original direction was was renamed as 'conventional current'. read less