Pannaya Parisujjhati , mottoeng = Self-purification is by insight , established = 1875 Vidyalankara Pirivena
1959 Vidyalankara University , type =

Public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

, endowment = , administrative_staff = 1000 full-time equivalent academic staff, 637 non-academic , chancellor = Kollupitiye Mahinda Sangharakkhitha Thera , vice_chancellor = Nilanthi De Silva , students = , undergrad = , postgrad = , doctoral = , other = , city =

Kelaniya Kelaniya ( si, කැලණිය ta, களனி) is a suburb of Colombo in the Western Province, Sri Lanka. It is known for the Buddhist temple built on the banks of the Kelani River, which divides the suburb from Colombo District. The templ ...

, state = , country =

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

, coordinates = , free_label = , free = , colours = , mascot = , campus = Suburban , affiliations =

University Grants Commission (Sri Lanka) University Grants Commission is the body responsible for funding most of the State Universities in Sri Lanka, and operates within the frame work of the Universities Act No. 16 of 1978. A public organisation, established under the Parliament Act ...

Association of Commonwealth Universities The Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) was established in 1913, and has over 500 member institutions in over 50 countries across the Commonwealth. The ACU is the world's oldest international network of universities. Its mission is ...

International Association of Universities The International Association of Universities (IAU) is a membership-led non-governmental organization working in the field of higher education. It comprises more than 600 higher education institutions and organizations in over 130 countries. IAU ...

,
Global Universities Partnership on Environment and Sustainability , accreditation =

, website = , logo = The University of Kelaniya( si, කැලණිය විශ්වවිද්‍යාලය, ta, களனி பல்கலைக்கழகம், abbreviated UoK) is a

state university A state university system in the United States is a group of public universities supported by an individual state, territory or federal district. These systems constitute the majority of public-funded universities in the country. State univers ...

. Just outside the municipal limits of

Colombo Colombo ( ; si, කොළඹ, translit=Koḷam̆ba, ; ta, கொழும்பு, translit=Koḻumpu, ) is the executive and judicial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo me ...

, in the

city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

, the

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

has two major institutions and seven faculties.

History

The University of Kelaniya has its origin in the historic Vidyalankara Pirivena, founded in 1875 by

Ratmalane Sri Dharmaloka Thera Ratmalane Sri Dharmaloka Thera (May 28, 1828 – August 15, 1885) was a scholar Buddhist monk who lived in the 19th century in Sri Lanka.Prof. Charles Dahanayake as the Dean of Science. The intake of the first batch of students was 57. Formal approval for the faculty was given by the Minister of Education in 1968. The science faculty was housed in the main building known as the "Science Block". Due to the continued increase in the student intake from year to year, a new lecture theatre complex and an auditorium were constructed in 1992, which enabled the intake of students to be increased to 450 in 2003. A new laboratory complex for the Chemistry Department and three buildings for the Departments for Industrial Management, Microbiology and Zoology have now been completed. The science faculty was the first among the Sri Lankan universities to initiate the changeover from the traditional three subject (General) degree with end of year examinations to a more flexible course unit system, i.e., a modularized credit-based system in a two-semester academic year with the end of semester examinations. It offers a variety of course pathways designed to provide flexibility in the choice of subjects. Under this system students have the option of reading for a traditional three subject degree or for a degree consisting of two principal subjects and a selection of course units drawn from other subject areas. The BSc (Special) degree courses, begun in 1974, adopted the course unit system in 1986. Currently, Prof. Sudath Kalingamudali is the dean of the faculty of Science. Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya

Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya

The faculty consists of eight departments. * Department of Botany * Department of Chemistry * Department of Industrial Management * Department of Mathematics * Department of Microbiology * Department of Physics and Electronics * Department of Statistics & Computer Science * Department of Zoology & Environmental Management

Faculty of Medicine

The Faculty of Medicine of the University of Kelaniya is on a campus at

Ragama Ragama ( si, රාගම ta, ரா௧ம) is a suburb of Colombo, located in the Gampaha District, Western Province, Sri Lanka. It is governed by the Ja-Ela Pradeshiya Sabha. History In July 1874 a rail line, known as the Breakwater line, ...

. It is one of eight medical schools in Sri Lanka. The faculty began classes with the admission of 120 students in September 1991 after the government, in 1989, nationalised the

North Colombo Medical College North Colombo Medical College (NCMC) was the first privately funded medical school in Sri Lanka. It started in 1980 with the admission of 100 local and 20 foreign students. The first batch of students began graduating in 1990. Founded by the Co ...

(NCMC), the first privately funded medical school in Sri Lanka established in 1980. The first batch of students, of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya completed their five-year course and graduated MBBS in September 1996. Prof. Carlo Fonseka was the first dean of the faculty. Subsequent deans were Prof. Janaka de Silva, Prof. Rajitha Wickremasinghe and Prof. Nilanthi de Silva. The current dean is Prof. Prasantha S. Wijesinghe. The faculty now has over 1,000 medical students. This number includes international students, mainly from other South Asian countries, who have been admitted on a fee-levying basis. The faculty also welcomes students for elective appointments. Students from medical schools in Europe, USA and Australia have spent their elective periods with the university. In addition to the MBBS course, it conducts a BSc programme in speech and hearing sciences. There is a permanent academic staff of over 120 and in addition 40 temporary academic staff and over 60 visiting staff that includes consultants who are based in the affiliated teaching hospitals.

Faculty of Social Science

The Faculty of Social Sciences, in student population, is the largest faculty in the University of Kelaniya.

Department of Library and Information Science

Faculty of Humanities

The faculty includes disciplines associated with Buddhist and Asian cultures, such as Pali and Buddhist Studies, Sinhala, Tamil, Sanskrit, Hindi, Japanese and Chinese, while teaching courses in modern European languages such as English, French, German and Russian.

Faculty of Commerce and Management

The faculty consists of four departments: * Department of Commerce * Department of Accountancy * Department of Marketing Management * Department of Human Resource Management * Department of Finance The Department of Commerce was the first to be established and contribute graduates to the industry. BCOM degree is unique to the Department of Commerce. Department provides special degree in Financial Management(BCOM (special) Degree in Financial management), Business technology(BCOM (special) Degree in Business Technology), Entrepreneurship(BCOM (special) Degree in Entrepreneurship) and Commerce(BCOM (special) Degree in Commerce).

Faculty of Computing and Technology

The University of Kelaniya established its 7th Faculty - the Faculty of Computing and Technology (FCT) on 30 December 2015 and the Faculty commenced its operations on 18 January 2016. The Faculty will offer Postgraduate Programmes in the areas of Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology and Engineering Technology. The Master of Information Technology in Education programme is currently being developed for the Ministry of Education to train ICT teachers in the national education system. The faculty will conduct research in diverse fields of significant impact. The research enterprise at the Faculty of Computing and Technology will expand from fundamental Computer Science research to the development of new technologies with applications to the industry and society as a whole. The Faculty is planning to propose the following Research and Development Centres: *Centre for Nanotechnology *Centre for eLearning *Language Engineering Research Centre *Centre for Geo-informatics *Centre for Computational Mathematics *Centre for Data Science *Centre for Cyber Security and Digital Forensics

Faculty of Graduate Studies

Twenty-three postgraduate degree programmes and six postgraduate diploma programmes are coordinated by the Faculty of Graduates Studies.

Postgraduate diplomas

*Regional Planning * Information Technology * Industrial and Business Management *Environmental Management *Mathematics *Human Resource Management

Postgraduate degrees

* M.A. in Sinhala *M.A. in Linguistics *M.A. in Drama and Theatre *M. S. Sc. in Mass Communication * M. S. Sc. in Sociology *M. S. Sc. in Geography * M. S. Sc. in Library Science * M. S. Sc. in Economics * M. S. Sc. in Political Science * M. S. Sc. in History * M. S. Sc. in Philosophy * MSc in Applied Microbiology * MSc in Food and Nutrition * MSc in Aquaculture and Fisheries Management * MSc in Biodiversity and Integrated Environmental Management * MSc in Industrial and Environment Chemistry * MSc in Management and Information Technology *MSc in Computer Science *Master of Commerce *Master of Business Management *Master of Philosophy * Doctor of Philosophy * Doctor of Medicine

Libraries and ICT services

University Library

The University of Kelaniya Library, has a history spanning over 60 years. In parallel to Vidyalankara Pirivena became Vidyalankara University in 1959, the library was started with a collection of books belonging to Vidyalankara Pirivena. Subsequently, it was shifted to the current premises in 1977. Later, as this old building was not sufficient enough to accommodate its growing collection and student population, the newly built four-storied building was added to the library system in 2013. Presently, the library owns a collection of over 245,000 books and monographs relevant to various study programmes and research activities in the university. Furthermore, the library has subscribed to EBSCO HOST, JSTOR, Emerald, Oxford University Press, Taylor and Francis databases with access facilities for more than 20,000 academic e-journals and more than 100,000 e-books. Professional librarians have been appointed for each faculty to fulfil the informational requirements and information literacy training needs of the users. The services provided by the Subject Liaison Librarians are : * Reference Sources and quick reference answers * Information Literacy Courses * Plagiarism Checking and consultations for avoiding plagiarism * Library Orientation/induction Programmes including library tours * Inter Library Loan Service * Document Delivery Service * Writing Help Services * Subject Guide Services * Literature Review Services * Remote access via VPN and Shibboleth Services * Special Software Training for Researchers e.g. Turnitin, Urkund, LaTeX, SPSS, Grammarly, Mendeley etc. * Citation analysis service

Information and Communication Technology Centre

The ICT Centre provides support services in IT-related teaching, research, internet services, staff development and hardware maintenance for the entire university. It conducts a computer literacy course open to all students and advanced courses in Visual Basic, web designing and hardware technology for the students who have successfully completed the computer literacy course. On-the-job training in the IT arena is provided for the young people just out of the university who work in the ICT Centre. The maintenance unit provides network, hardware and software support to the clients in the university, and IT for academic departments and administrative branches of the university. Video filming of special events of the university since 2005 is an additional service. Currently, the ICT Centre hosts web and mail services for all students and staff. They have a university-wide

wifi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

network called "Kelani-WiFi". The ICT Centre is the first institutional Sri Lankan member of

Eduroam eduroam (''edu''cation ''roam''ing) is an international Wi-Fi internet access roaming service for users in research, higher education and further education. It provides researchers, teachers, and students network access when visiting an institu ...

Historically related institutions

The

Vidyodaya University Vidyodaya School is a private college-preparatory combined-grades school located in Thevakkal, Kochi, India. It provides comprehensive school education from lower primary to grade 12. About Established in 1990-91 the school conducts classes fr ...

was created at the same time as the Vidyalankara University. Today Vidyodaya University is known as the

University of Sri Jayewardenepura ''Vijja Uppattam Setta'' , mottoeng = Among all that arise, knowledge is the greatest , established = , undergrad = 14,750 , postgrad = 3560 , administrative_staff = 3950 , cit ...

Students Societies and Clubs

*Sports Club *Gavel Club *Art Society *Inventors Club *AIESEC *Haritha Kawaya *Buddhist Students' Society *Leo club *Humane Society *CSM

Centre for Gender Studies(CGS)

Centre for Gender studies was founded by Prof.

Maithree Wickremesinghe Maithree Wickremesinghe (born 11 August 1964) is a Sri Lankan academic, writer, and professor of English at the University of Kelaniya. She specializes in gender and women's studies. Wickremesinghe is the current First Lady of Sri Lanka since ...

with the objective of initiating and conducting research on Gender issues and conducting educational programs on gender studies. Currently, Dr Sagarika Kannangara acts as the director of this centre.

Faculty staff

Vice chancellors

* Thilak Rathnakara (1978–1982) * S. L. Kekulawala * M. P. Perera (1983–1985) * I. Balasooriya (1985–1987) * M. M. J. Marasinghe * K. Dharmasena * H. H. Costa (1994–1997) * Senaka Bandaranaike (1997–1999) * Thilakaratne Kapugamage (1999–2005) * M. J. S. Wijeyaratne (2005–2008) *

Sarath Amunugama Sarath Amunugama, JP is a leading Sri Lankan academic, who is a professor of French and the founding Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Visual & Performing Arts, Colombo. He is a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Kelaniya. Amun ...

(2008–2012) * Sunanda Madduma Bandara (2012–2017) * Semasinghe Dissanayake (2017–2020) * Nilanthi de Silva (2020 - To date)

Notable alumni

Kemal Deen Professor Kemal Deen is a Sri Lankan academic surgeon, and a consultant in GastroIntestinal Surgery. Currently, he is the chairman and senior professor of surgery at the University of Kelaniya Medical School, Sri Lanka. He is a founder profess ...

Harendra de Silva Harendra de Silva is a pediatrician whose efforts have helped to create awareness of child abuse in Sri Lanka. Education de Silva was educated at Ananda College Colombo, before he entered the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, where he ...

* Carlo Fonseka *

Janaka de Silva Janaka de Silva FRCP FNASSL is a Sri Lankan physician and academic. He is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Kelaniya. Janaka de Silva was educated at Royal College, Colombo and holds degrees from the universities of Colombo ...

Nalin de Silva Thakurartha Devadithya Guardiyawasam Lindamulage Nalin Kumara de Silva ( Sinhala: නලින් ද සිල්වා; born 20 October 1944) is a Sri Lankan philosopher and a political analyst. He is the current Sri Lankan ambassador in Mya ...

Saman Gunatilake Saman Gunatilake, FRCP, FCCP is a Sri Lankan physician, academic and neurologist. He was a Professor of Medicine with a personal chair and head of the Department of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, working with Professor Janaka de Silva till h ...

* Jagdish Kashyap *

Karunasena Kodituwakku Karunasena Kodituwakku (born March 21, 1945) is a Sri Lankan politician, academic and diplomat. He was the Sri Lankan ambassador to China, and non-resident ambassador to Mongolia and North Korea.

Sunanda Mahendra Kala Keerthi Sunanda Mahendra De Mel (born 28 January 1938) ( si, සුනන්ද මහේන්ද්‍ර), popularly known as Sunanda Mahendra, is an author, theater director, poet and Sinhala Radio Play writer in Sri Lanka. Currently, ...

* Kollupitiye Mahinda Sangharakkhitha Thera * Polwatte Buddhadatta Mahanayake Thera * Witiyala Seewalie Thera * Jagath Weerasinghe *

Harischandra Wijayatunga Wijayatunga Mudalige Harischandra Wijayatunga ( si, විජයතුංග මුදලිගේ හරිශ්චන්ද්‍ර විජයතුංග; born 25 October 1931) is a Sri Lankan author, translator, lexicographer, teacher, ...

Ashin Nandamalabhivamsa Ashin Nandamālābhivaṃsa ( my, အရှင် နန္ဒမာလာ ဘိဝံသ) (born 22 March 1939), commonly known by his position as Rector Sayadaw ( my, ပါမောက္ခချုပ် ဆရာတော်), is a Burmes ...

* Ashin Dhammasāmi *

Anura Kumara Dissanayaka Anura may refer to: Biology * Anura (frog), the order for frogs * ''Anura'' (plant), a genus of flowering plants in the daisy family People Anura is a common given name in Sri Lanka * Anura Bandaranaike (1949–2008), Sri Lankan politician * A ...

* Sevvandi Jayakody

Facilities

Hostel facilities for students

Hostel facilities are provided for selected numbers of students. Hostels are located inside and outside the university premises. *Kiriwaththuduwe Sri Prangnasara Hostel for Clergy *C.W.W. Kannangara Boys' Hostel *Yakkaduwe Pannarama Boys' Hostel *Bandaranayake Girls' Hostel *Sangamitta Girls' Hostel *Viharamahadevi Girls' Hostel *Ediriweera Sarachchandra Girls' Hostel *E.W. Adikarama Girls Hostel *Gunapala Malalasekara Girls' Hostel *Hemachandra Rai Girls' Hostel *Soma Guna Mahal (External) Girls' Hostel *Bulugaha Junction (External) Girls' Hostel

References

External links

* {{authority control 1959 establishments in Ceylon Educational institutions established in 1959 Statutory boards of Sri Lanka Education in Kelaniya Universities and colleges in Western Province, Sri Lanka Universities in Sri Lanka