The perennial question of who should control a nation's schools has been answered in different ways in different ages and countries. In Ceylon a partnership between the state and denominational agencies was created in the nineteenth century by British administrators, guided by the dual system of educational control characteristic of British educational policy. Social and cultural movements which began in the last decade of the nineteenth century, however, threatened the privileged position of Christian denominational organizations in a preponderantly non-Christian country. The dual system became the subject of acrimonious controversy culminating in its eclipse within a dozen years after political independence. This article surveys the many facets of the relationship between the state and denominational agencies during a period which encompasses over a century of Ceylon's educational history.
