Cabinet appointed committee recommends intake of local students for MBBS at KDU

A cabinet appointed committee which was appointed by the government to look into the issue of local student intake for the medical degree offered by Kotelawala Defense University (KDU) has recommended limited intake of local civil students for the course.   
Subsequently the KDU website was carrying a notice calling for applications from local students for the medical degree. The eligible students were requested to submit their applications before July 18.   
The cabinet appointed committee has recommended that priority has to be given to military, foreign, local civil students respectively. A batch should be confined to 150 students as per the recommendation. Around 10 percent of local students will get full scholarship to follow the medical degree.   
The decision by the cabinet committee came few days before the hearing of a case filed by some parents of students who were deprived of applying for the degree was to come up. The hearing of the case is fixed for today (July 7 2025).   
Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa who commented on the matter said in his X message that the government has slammed the reverse gear.  
“After weeks of hurling insults at the Opposition the Cabinet has now slammed the reverse gear and reopened applications to Sri Lankan day-scholars for the MBBS programme,” Premadasa said.   
“ In the meantime, hundreds of qualified students were left in limbo, scrambling for foreign placements, filing fundamental-rights petitions, and spending money their families could barely spare. Parents endured a month of anxiety, not knowing whether to pay overseas deposits or wait for a government that kept moving the goalposts.  
“Ministers burned precious parliamentary hours defending a decision they anyway reversed. Parents endured a month of anxiety,  Ministers burned precious parliamentary hours defending a decision they anyway reversed. Education decisions shape lives and careers. When policy is drafted on the back of an envelope and shredded at will, young people lose faith in the system. If the Government truly does not know what they are doing, or stuck in indecision, at least don’t export that uncertainty to its people,” he added.