Studentships & scholarships fund was one of the key projects undertaken by the Association. Since its inception in  2007, the successive executive committees of PUAAN engaged in various fundraising activities to establish a fund that could ultimately provide studentships and scholarships to each faculty.

Dr Neil Horadagoda (who was a senior lecturer at Peradeniya Veterinary Faculty) in the executive committee at the time established a line of liaison with our mother alumni association  (AAUP) at Peradeniya who administer the scholarships.

The fund started with an initial deposit of Rs 200,000 in 2009, a couple of years after the Association was formed and the interest accrued from the term deposit enabled the annual award of two scholarships of Rs 10,000 each for the students who excelled at the first examination in the Arts faculty.

In the subsequent years the executive committees under the leadership of Wasantha Wickramanayake, Lakshman Randeniya, Malini Arumugam placed a greater emphasis on providing at least one scholarship as well as one studentship to each faculty.  The scholarship fund was expanded exponentially with transfer of up to Rs 1.2M since 2009 and another transfer of Rs 1.5M in 2016. At present the term deposit stands at Rs2.7M. Commencing from March 2017, the interest accrued from the fund has enabled the Association to annually offer studentships and scholarships (each worth Rs 12 000) across all nine faculties reaching its intended target.

During the inception of the fund the executive committee decided to avoid adhoc funding of scholarships on year to year basis and wanted to establish a sustainable fund for the longer term financing of scholarships from the interest earned from a term deposit.

We have also fomalised our relationship with AAUP through an MOU which was originally written by former PUAAN public officer Sarath Wijayapala. We have received several letters of appreciation for our support by some of the scholarship holders.