At the turn of the 20th century, the British rule in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) had been firmly rooted. Having encouraged by the rulers, the Christian missionaries had been engaged in missionary work through the missionary schools established by that time, in most of the main towns including Colombo, Yapane, Mahanuwara, Galla, Matara and Kurunegala. Undoubtedly, the motive behind this type of ‘education’ was to acquire cultural and social dependancy of the natives.
Anyhow, the majority of native Buddhist children had little or no access to these schools due to religious, economic and social constraints. Hence, being very sympathetic over the unfortunate situation confronted by the Buddhists, Colonel. S.Olcott and Mrs. Biavetsky along with Ven. Migettuwatte Gunanananda Thero, Ven, Hikkaduwe Sri Sumagala Thero and some of the Buddhist leaders namely Don Carolis Hewavitarana, C.P. Gunawardhana and Pundith Batuwantudawe took the initiative steps to from the Buddhist Theosophical Society (The B.T.S.) in order to look in to possible measure to remedy the situation.
Accordingly, the B.T.S., unanimously reached at the decision to establish several Buddhist English schools in the main towns of the country. And the first of its kind was founded in Colombo in 1886, named Ananda Vidyalaya. Followed by this, several other Buddhist English schools came into existence in the main towns, those are namely Dharmaraja Vidyalaya, Mahanuwara, Mahinda Vidyalaya Galla, Maliyadeva Vidyalaya Kurunegala and Nalanda Vidyalaya Colombo and several others in other parts of the country.
At that time, the situation prevailed in Kegalla area, was no way different from rest of the country, and the missionary schools were dominating in the field of English education thus, creating a mono politic setup.
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