St. Aloysius' College, Galle


St. Aloysius' College is a boys' high school located in Galle, the capital city of Southern Province in Sri Lanka. The school was established in 1895 by recently arrived Belgian Jesuit missionaries, led by :fr:Joseph Van Reeth, first bishop of Galle. St. Aloysius' College is a national school, which provides primary and secondary education. In 2012, it had 4,000 students on its roll.

History

St. Aloysius' College is situated on Mount Calvary, neighbouring St. Mary's Cathedral on one side and Sacred Heart Convent on the other. The college was established in 1895 by Belgian Jesuit fathers and was named after the Jesuit Saint, Saint Aloysius Gonzaga. Saint Aloysius' is regarded as the 'Patron Saint of the Youth' by the Jesuits because of the heroic acts that he had performed when he was a young Jesuit helping plague victims in Rome, Italy in 1587. After a few years helping plague victims, young Saint Aloysius died on 21 June 1591 at the age of 23 when he himself contracted the disease. St. Aloysius' College, Galle, is one of many schools named after Saint Aloysius.
Until the Sri Lankan government brought legislation for nationalisation of schools in the island, St. Aloysius' College was run by Jesuit Fathers and the medium of instruction was English. The first Buddhist Principal was appointed in the year 1971 and subsequently the medium of instruction was changed to Sinhala.

College Today

The college provides education to 4,000 students from grade 1 to grade 13. The students of the school fall into diverse religious groups where over 90 percent of students are Buddhists and the others are Christian and Muslism.

College Crest's Elements

Center:IHS – Iesus Hominum Salvator

1. The Tusker – Courage

2.Lilies – Purity of conscience

3.Torch – Torch of learning

4.Rooster – Symbol of Galle

College Houses

Students represent five houses that are named after Jesuit Fathers who were pioneers in developing the school in its early days.
Students are divided into houses according to their admission number.
Sports is a major part of St. Aloysius’ College. Cricket, Basketball, Rugby, Football, Hockey and Swimming are some of the sports among over 20 sports in College. Among all of them Rugby takes a vital role as it is having a long way of history starting from 1980s. As a foot step of that, with the motto ‘‘ Born with the Stuff ’’ Rugby was introduced at St. Aloysius’ in latter part of 1980’s. The first historic match was played in 1992 against Richmond College. Taking centre stage of the annual sporting calendar are the St. Aloysius' - Richmond Rugby Encounter.

Principals

PeriodDetails
1910 – 1921Rev. Fr. Dionysius Murphy S.J
1921 – 1925Rev. Fr. John Delaney S.J
1925 – 1949Rev. Fr. Ernest Gaspard S.J
1949 – 1962Rev. Fr. Paul Nazarine Peiris S.J
1963 – 1968Rev. Fr. Paul Caspersz S.J
1968 – 1970Rev. Fr. Stephen Fernando S.J
1970 – 1971Rev. Fr. Paul Caspersz S.J
13 June 1971 – 1 April 1972B. K. Silva
1 April 1972 – 28 February 1973Dunstan Fernando
28 February 1973 – 3 August 1973J. B. Varnakulasingham
3 August 1973 – 22 December 1975L. D. P. Jayasinghe
22 December 1975 – 25 May 1976A. B. J. L. Fernando
25 May 1976 – 7 January 1987D. Y. Wijewickrama
7 January 1987 – 1996A. V. Illeperuma
1996 – 2004N. K. Ariyawansa
2004 –2004Nandasena Pathirana
2004 – 2014D. P. L. S. Gunasekara
2014 - 2014Piyasiri
2014 - 2017 OctoberRanjith Thilakarathne
2017 - 2017L.P.Weeraman
2017–2020Nayanapriya Perera
2020-PresentAnura Gamage

Old Boys' Associations

There are a number of branches of the school’s Old Boys’ Association located all around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Qatar and the United Kingdom.

Notable alumni

NameNotabilityReference
playwright, novelist, poet and literary critic
Scientist in Exobiology Division at NASA's Ames Research Center
educationist, founder of D. S. Senanayake College
economist, Governor of the Central Bank of Ceylon
Judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka
General - Commander of the Army
President - Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology
Director, University of Colombo School of Computing
consultant psychiatrist, author, buddhist scholar
Chief Minister of Southern Province, Governor of Uva
Member of Parliament
musician, composer, singer, lyricist
songwriter, composer, music arranger, instrumentalist
Chairman - George Steuart Group, Director - Citrus Leisure PLC, Managing Director - Triad Ltd
One Day International cricket player
First class cricket player
Member of Parliament
Chairman & CEO of Strategic Enterprise Management Agency at Presidential Secretariat,Sri Lanka