Kotelawala Defence University: The Beacon of Light in Defence Related Higher Education
View(s):In recognition of its multifaceted, distinguished and immeasurable service to the nation through the field of higher education for safeguarding and ensuring the national security of the country and through its undeniable contribution to the achievement of sustainable development goals over the last four decades, His Excellency the President is due to award Presidential and Kotelawala Defence University Colours to General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University on March 25.
The following entails a succinct description of the path trodden by KDU over the last four decades and the contributions it made to the nation since its inception to deserve being honoured with Presidential Colours.
In the context of the socio-economic and political environment that prevailed in the decade of the 1970s in Sri Lanka, there emerged a need for strengthening the tri-services with officer ranks with high accomplishment in knowledge and skills in defence services and management. It also became a national requirement of high significance to produce such officers of the tri-services together surpassing the boundaries of traditional military training, which entailed the concept of ‘togetherness’ among them that would eventually facilitate ensuring national security through collective and harmonious effort of the security forces. Thus came the idea of establishing a tri-service defence academy to achieve this national objective.
Convinced by the significance of establishing the academy by the Commander of the Army, Lt Gen Dennis Perera, Sir John Kotelawala, the third Prime Minister of independent Sri Lanka generously donated his personal property of the Kandawala Estate, a 48-acre prime land adjacent to the Ratmalana Air Port along with its moveable and immovable property to the Sri Lanka Army in 1980 to accomplish the task.
Accordingly, the tri-service academy was established with the Parliamentary Act No. 68 of 1981, and it was named after the benefactor, as the General Sir John Kotelawala Academy, and since then it commenced the task of empowering the nation’s youths in the armed services as intellectually potent and strategically skillful youths as officers graduated in disciplines needed for the tri-services. In the year 1988, the academy was given the degree awarding status with an amendment Act so that KDA could conduct Bachelor’s degree programmes of its own.
Today, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University has matured into an excellent seat of learning in the country offering Bachelors to Doctoral degrees by identifying national goals and requisites and reshaping itself in accordance with such needs, fulfilling its role of educating personnel and disseminating knowledge with the core of all innovations, expansions and activities being intrinsically connected with its mandate of working towards preserving national security through higher education.
The University now provides opportunities for nation’s youths and professionals to realise their higher education ambitions within the country by enlisting themselves in degree programmes offered through the faculties of Postgraduate Studies, Defence and Strategic Studies, Medicine, Engineering, Law, Management, Social Sciences and Humanities, Allied Health Sciences, Built Environment and Spatial Sciences, Computing, Technology, and Criminal Justice. These faculties have ensured that the degree programmes offered by them are of high professional value and that they are benchmarked with international standards and accepted by the University Grants Commission of Sri Lanka, and they also ensure that enlisted students receive their education in a disciplined environment with the assurance of completing their degrees within a fixed time frame.
The University boasts of a well-established and fully-fledged Medical Faculty and a state-of-the-art hospital to facilitate the students with their practical and clinical training. In addition to being a teaching hospital for medical students, the environment friendly KDU Hospital provides international standard healthcare facilities and specialist consultancy services for patients from the general public.
While a large number of students qualify with G.C. E. Advanced Level qualifications, it is only a small segment of such youths get the opportunity to register at local universities, and through expansions as shown above, KDU has been able to contribute to the fulfillment of the national responsibility of making the right of a large segment of Sri Lankan youths a reality, and KDU always takes pride in shouldering such social responsibilities.
During a short span of existence of the last four decades, the KDU has strengthened itself with physical and human resources. Modern lecture theatres with state of the art facilities, auditoriums laboratories, libraries, physical training centres, swimming pools, sports grounds, sports pavilions, administrative buildings, hostels, beautiful gardens, canteens and restaurants are best examples for physical resource developments. The versatile academic staff with professors in each subject discipline, dedicated non-academic staff with administrative officers, service and civil support staff and clerical and other staff all dedicated and committed for the betterment of the university, represent the human resources of the university.
This occasion also reminisces the contribution of the Vice Chancellor, Major General Milinda Priyadarshana Peiris, the only Vice Chancellor to serve in that capacity for two terms, whose vision has been a foremost contribution for tremendous achievements made by the University.
It is the pristine wish of the nation’s youths that the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University that traverses along untrodden paths in higher education with courage, determination and resilience with a clear focus and orientation towards carrying the proud brand of the national defence university of Sri Lanka and its legacy forward for the benefit of the nation for many years to come.
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