The Educational Activities of the Portuguese in Jaffna - A Historical view

Abstract

The Portuguese landed in Sri Lanka at the beginning of the 16^th century. One of their objectives of coming to the eastern areas was to spread their religion. Thus they engaged in spreading the catholic religion in the captured areas. Education was one of the ways they used in spreading Christianity. They constructed schools very close to the church. They were keen in spreading their religion to the students who came to the schools, whether they liked or not. They succeeded in this activity to some extent.  As a result of the educational activities of the Portuguese the traditional education pattern in Jaffna tended to become weak. But the people of Jaffna did not lose completely the Hindu tradition and the Hindu education. But it was evident in another form not only during the time of Portuguese but during the successive Dutch and the British  period.

In this research, different aspects are analyzed.  They include education pattern of Jaffna prior to the arrival of the Portuguese, their way of handling education with the objective of spreading their religion in Jaffna and the difficulties met in the traditional education system of Jaffna.

I have used the primary sources for this article. They are the Portuguese documents, archaeological and other historical materials. I have also utilized as secondary sources, the relevant researches, other books, articles in the journals, magazines and internet based on primary sources.