Rajasinghe Central College

Hanwella is one of the historic place in the ancient Seethawaka Kingdom. Hanwella Rajasinghe Central College was established and inaugurated in 1886 on the premises where the present divisional educational office is situated.

At the time that "Free education to all from primary level to the university" was introduced by Dr. C.W.W. Kannanggara (Minister of Education), this school was named as "Hanwella Madhya Maha Vidyalaya". This was the 20th Madhya Maha Vidyalaya in Ceylon which was belonging to the 3rd category.

At that time, the present central school was insufficient to cope with 600 pupils, therefore the school was shifted to a new place called "Lancia meru godalla".

Captain D.S. Gunasekara and a committee of villagers collected money (Rs.12000) from villagers and bought this plot of land (Lancia meru godalla) from Mr. Thepanis Welikala Appuhami and presented it in 1946 to Dr. C.W.W. Kannaggara who was the Minister of Education at that time. The foundation stone for the two-story building was laid on December 21, 1951, by Capt. Gunasekara and it was opened in May 1953 by Prime Minister Hon. Dudley Senanayake, under the guidance of Mrs. Kusuma Gunawardena.

This was a leading school in the historic Seethawaka Kingdom. In 1968, Mr. Philip Gunawardena (Minister of Parliament) proposed to rename "Hanwella Madhya Maha Vidyalaya' as "Hanwella Rajasinghe Central College" .

The students are divided among four houses

• Gemunu

Colour -      Blue

• Parakum

Colour -      Yellow

• Thissa

Colour -      Red

• Vijaya

Colour -      Green

The houses are named for four ancient kings of Sri Lanka.