Sri Lanka Military Academy

Sri Lanka Military Academy
Crest of the Sri Lanka Military Academy
Active	6 February 1950 –Present
Country	Sri Lanka
Branch	Sri Lanka Army
Type	Training
Role	Officer Training
Size	More than 600 Officer Cadets
Garrison/HQ	Diyatalawa
Motto(s)	Serve to Lead
Anniversaries	20 August
Commanders
Commandant	Brigadier PWB Jayasundara, USP, psc, IG

The Sri Lanka Military Academy (SLMA), commonly known simply as Diyatalawa, is the Sri Lanka Army's officer initial training centre located in the garrison town of Diyatalawa in the central highlands of Sri Lanka.

SLMA is much like Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for it is not a university, unlike some other national military academies such as West Point in the United States, National Defence Academy (India) or the Australian Defence Force Academy. General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University is the university-type defence academy in Sri Lanka, which sends its cadets to SLMA for their final year.

When the Ceylon Army was raised in 1949, the need arose to recruit and train officers and soldiers of the newly formed army. The Army Recruit Training Depot (ARTD) was therefore formed in Diyatalawa on 6 February 1950 for the purpose of training recruits. The first batch of 114 recruits passed out from the ARTD on 2 June 1950. The ARTD was later named as the Army Training Centre (ATC). But facilities did not exist to train officers, and therefore Officer Cadets were sent to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMA) in the United Kingdom. The first batch of ten Officer Cadets were enlisted to the Army on the 10 of October 1949 and were dispatched to RMA Sandhurst.

Subsequently Officer Cadets were trained at the Indian Military Academy and the National Defence Academy (India), and to a lesser extent the Pakistan Military Academy and Bangladesh Military Academy. Overseas training was not sufficient to meet the growing needs. Therefore, arrangements were then made to train Officer Cadets locally. The first intake of Officer Cadets who were earmarked to be trained at the Army Training Centre, Diyatalawa, were enlisted on 16 April 1968. Since then Officer Cadets were locally trained and commissioned. With the expansion and the growing need to train large numbers of recruits, recruit training was assigned to the respective regiments.