Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2025-07-01 (Subject to Confirmation at the next Meeting)

Scholarship programme to provide opportunities for top-performers of the G.C.E.(Advanced Level) Examination to pursue their Bachelor's degree in foreign universities

- In order to fulfill the goal of creating "A civilized citizen - An advanced human resource" as per the Government Policy Statement, a provision of Rs. 200 million has been allocated through the Budget Proposal - 2025 to implement a programme to provide scholarships to the top-performers of the G.C.E. (Advanced Level) Examination to pursue their Bachelor's degree in internationally high ranked foreign universities. Under this scholarship programme, it is proposed to award scholarships to complete Degree courses for a maximum of 04 years from foreign universities teaching in English-medium that are among the top 500 in the international university ranking indices. It has been planned to award scholarships to 200 students through this programme under a five-year plan and in its first phase, it is expected to select a number of students from 20-50 for the year 2025. Students with the highest Z-Score under the main subject streams of the G.C.E. (Advanced Level) Examination will be given the opportunity to apply for this. The selection of the suitable students from among the said applications will be done by an expert interview panel comprising of the university professors and lecturers. Accordingly, the proposal made by the Hon. Prime Minister in her capacity as the Minister of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education to implement the proposed Scholarship Programme, was approved by the Cabinet.