A Brief Survey on the Origin, History, and the Development of Muslim Education in Ceylon Under British Rule

Abstract

The primary objective of this paper is to briefly trace and survey the origin, history, and development of the Muslim education in Ceylon from British colonial time to modern time. This is not an extensive study on Muslim education in Sri Lanka rather this study traces the trends and evaluation processes of Muslim education. How did the Muslim community formulate its education policies and strategies in the past in Ceylon? How did British empire help the Muslim minority community to enhance its secular education in the formative years of Muslim education in Ceylon? How did Muslim community compete with Tamil and Sinhalese communities in the field of Education? The Sri Lankan Muslim community is the second minority community today. Many statistics suggest that the Sri Lankan Muslim community is falling behind in education, public employment, and other higher education opportunities in Sri Lanka. This backwardness of Sri Lankan Muslim community in education and public services can be attributed to some historical, religious, cultural, economic, and political factors. The checkered history of the past colonial periods in Ceylon has shaped and molded the present status of the Muslim community today. The pathetic condition of Muslim community today is nothing but a reflection of wrong conceptual policies of Muslims in the past in its history. Unlike Tamil and Sinhalese communities, the Ceylon Muslim community failed to upgrade and uplift its education due to some wrong perceptions, and religious concepts. That is why even today in this digital world, the Sri Lanka Muslim community finds it hard to upgrade and uplift its education. This paper explores the interplay between the past and present-day Muslim history to understand the factors that have contributed to the backwardness of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka. A qualitative research method has been employed this research to understand why Muslims are still falling behind in education. Ideally, a quantitative research method would have been more useful one in this research to measure the level of Muslim percentage in all sections of education today and yet, it is beyond the scope of this research paper to carry out such a research.