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Sri Lanka Education
Traditional and Colonial Systems
The education system of Sri Lanka until colonial times
primarily was designed for a small elite in a society with
relatively low technology. The vast majority of the population
was illiterate or semiliterate. Among the Sinhalese, learning was
the job of Buddhist monks. At the village level, literate monks
would teach privileged students in the pansal, or temple
school. The curriculum there, still taught to young children,
included the Sinhala alphabet and memorization of elementary
Buddhist literature--the Nam potha (Book of Names) of
Buddhist shrines, the Magul lakuna (Book of Auspicious
Symbols on the Buddha's body), and classic stories of the
Buddha's life. The pursuit of higher education typically was
reserved for men who became monks and took place at universities
(pirivena) dedicated almost exclusively to memorization
and commentary on the Pali scriptures. Among the Tamil
population, village schools, which were located near temples,
were run by literate Brahmans or educated
Vellalas (see Glossary).
Technical training was highly developed for students
of the arts (such as architecture or sculpture); for engineers,
who applied geometry to problems of irrigation; and for craftsmen
in various trades. This training, however, was generally the
preserve of closed corporations, castes, or families. Knowledge
was often passed down from fathers to sons.
Although colonization brought European-style education to Sri
Lanka, especially to prepare students for positions in the
colonial administrations, few women went to school and most
people remained uneducated. During the sixteenth century,
Portuguese missionaries established up to 100 schools designed to
foster a Roman Catholic culture among the growing Christian
community in the low country. When the Dutch took over in 1656,
they set up a well-organized system of primary schools to support
the missionary efforts of the Dutch Reformed Church. By 1760 they
had 130 schools with an attendance of nearly 65,000 students. The
British takeover led to the closing of many Dutch schools and a
short-term contraction of European-style education in the low
country. By the mid-nineteenth century, government-funded schools
and Christian schools were again expanding; in 1870, however,
their combined student bodies had fewer than 20,000 students.
Because they were educated in English, the graduates of the
European-style schools, a large portion of them Christians from
the low country in the southwest, went on to fill lower and
middle-level positions in the colonial administration. Apart from
the European-style schools, education continued through the
traditional system in Tamil and Sinhala.
In 1870 a series of events revolutionized the education
system in Sri Lanka. The government began to expand the number of
state-run schools and instituted a program of grants for private
schools that met official standards. Medical and law colleges
were established in Colombo. There was a big increase in the
number of students (which totalled more than 200,000 by 1900),
but the lopsided development that had characterized the early
nineteenth century became even more apparent by the early
twentieth century. Private schools taught in English, which
offered the best road for advancement, were dominated by
Christian organizations, remained concentrated in the southwest,
and attracted a disproportionate number of Christian and Tamil
students. Although institutions that used Tamil and Sinhala
continued to function as elementary schools, secondary
institutions that taught exclusively in English attracted an
elite male clientele destined for administrative positions. The
education of women lagged behind; by 1921 the female literacy
rate among the Christians was 50 percent, among the Buddhists 17
percent, among the Hindus 10 percent, and among the Muslims only
6 percent.
The colonial pattern began to change in the 1930s, after
legislative reforms placed the Ministry of Education under the
control of elected representatives. The government directly
controlled an ever-larger proportion of schools (about 60 percent
by 1947) and teacher-training colleges. As part of a policy to
promote universal literacy, education became free in government
schools, elementary and technical schools were set up in rural
areas, and vernacular education received official encouragement.
In 1942 with the establishment of the University of Ceylon, free
education was available from kindergarten through the university
level. When independence came in 1948, Sri Lanka had a welldeveloped education infrastructure. Although still hampered by
gross ethnic, geographic, and gender inequalities, it formed the
basis for a modern system.
Data as of October 1988
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