The committee appointed to submit recommendations for the recruitment of students to the Faculty of Medicine of the Kotelawala Defence University has submitted its recommendations.
Accordingly, the manner in which local students should be recruited to the Faculty of Medicine of the Kotelawala Defence University and the relevant policies and recommendations have been submitted.
The recommendations include recruiting only one batch of medical students for one year, limiting the total number of medical students to 150, and limiting the number of local civilian medical students to a maximum of 100 on a paid basis.
In recruiting medical students, priority will be given to tri-service students, foreign students and local students in the following order.
As determined by the Board of Management, a minimum Z-score of 1.4000 or higher will be maintained as a criterion for the recruitment of medical students.
10% of each batch of local civilian medical students recruited will be recruited on full scholarships and these students should be selected through the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education.
Students recruited in this way will not be allowed to register as full-time internal students in other state universities except the Open University.
A special uniform will not be mandatory for civilian students participating in the course and they will be given the opportunity to attend lectures in the same way as students from other medical faculties attend university lectures.
The recommendations state that the Ministry of Health and Mass Media will specifically select hospitals for these students for clinical training.
The Kotelawala University does not accept any responsibility for the recruitment of these students to government hospitals and an agreement will be obtained at the time of registration of students that such recruitment will be done only according to the vacancies available.
The final recommendation applies to the academic staff of the Faculty of Medicine.
Accordingly, officers who have served in the academic staff of the Faculty of Medicine under the University Grants Commission will be recruited to the academic staff of the Faculty of Medicine of the Kotelawala Defence University only after a period of 5 years has passed since leaving that staff service. (The recommendation also states that this condition does not apply in the case of obtaining seven-year leave and retirement from service).
The committee that made these recommendations was chaired by the Secretary of Defense, Retired Air Vice Marshal Sampath Thuiyakontha, and included the Secretary of Education, Higher Education, and Vocational Education, Nalaka Kaluwewa, and the Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Mass Media, Dr. Anil Jasinghe.