Paramedical Courses in Sri Lanka 2026: Eligibility Checker

The Ministry of Health & Mass Media calls applications for these courses once a year, in a Sinhala gazette notice: for 2026, Gazette No. 2501, Part I : Section (IIA), of 2026-08-07, pages 69 to 78. There is no arithmetic in it. The job is reading an eight-row table correctly, and the table changes a compulsory subject, an age ceiling, a sex restriction or a height from one row to the next.

For each of the eight courses the checker runs, in the gazette's own column order:

1. O/L credit passes. Credit passes, grade C or better, in Sinhala or Tamil Language, Mathematics, Science and one other subject. On the Prosthetist and Orthotist row alone the four named subjects are Science, Mathematics, English and Sinhala or Tamil Language, so English carries a credit requirement there and nowhere else. This single line is the most missable thing in the notice.
2. Six O/L subjects including English, in not more than 2 sittings. On seven of the eight rows English must be among the six passed but needs no credit.
3. An accepted A/L sitting. Seven are listed: 2019 (old syllabus), 2019 (new syllabus), 2020 (old syllabus), 2020 (new syllabus), 2021, 2022, 2023. The old and new syllabus sittings of 2019 and 2020 count separately and both are in.
4. Three A/L subjects passed at one and the same examination. A pass is grade S or better.
5. A credit pass in the compulsory subject named for that course, and passes in two morefrom that course's own list. The lists differ: Electro Cardiographer and Electro Encephalographer name exactly Chemistry and Physics, while Public Health Inspector names five subjects.
6. Age on 2026-08-07, in completed years. 18 to 30 on seven rows, 18 to 35 on Prosthetist and Orthotist.
7. Sex, height and marital status where the row sets them, then the standing disqualifications in clauses 6.1 to 6.4.

A course is open only when every test that applies to it passes. Where one is closed, the card names a single rule: first a rule about who may apply, then one about what you had to pass. Being told about a chemistry grade is no use to someone a row excludes outright.

Two numbers are easy to get wrong, so each is computed a second way and the working is shown. Age is counted in completed years to 2026-08-07, then checked again against the date-of-birth window each band implies: 1995-08-08 to 2008-08-07 for the 18 to 30 band, and 1990-08-08 onwards for 18 to 35. Someone born exactly 31 years before the reference date has their birthday on it and is already too old, which is where off-by-one errors live. Height is printed twice and the two figures disagree: 5 ft 2 in is 157.48 cm at 2.54 cm an inch, but the gazette prints 157.46 cm. The checker uses the printed figure, the lower of the two on both rows.

What the page will not do is guess at your chances. Clauses 4.1 to 4.5 select in A/L Z-score order and share places between provinces by population, and clause 7.2 states that meeting every condition does not entitle anyone to a place. Medical fitness is judged by a board after selection, so no health question is asked.

Table 01 and Table 02 of the gazette, in one row per course. Credit means grade C or better, pass means grade S or better.

Source: Gazette No. 2501 of 2026-08-07, Tables 01 and 02. Heights as the gazette prints them: Public Health Inspector 5 ft 2 in (157.46 cm), School Dental Therapist 4 ft 10 in (147.3 cm).

• Gazette No. 2501, Part I : Section (IIA), 2026-08-07, pages 69 to 78 (Sinhala, PDF)
• Department of Government Printing: the gazette archive of record
• Ministry of Health & Mass Media: the notice and the online application
• Ministry press notice: the eight courses, the durations and the closing date
• Department of Examinations: the G.C.E. grading key behind credit pass and ordinary pass

The gazette was read page by page as page images on 2026-10-03. Its embedded text layer is a legacy font mapping and produces garbage when copied, so nothing on this page was taken from it. No English or Tamil text of this notice was published for the 2026 cycle, so the Sinhala text is operative throughout. Where the Ministry and this page disagree, the Ministry is right: tell me and I will fix it.

Student nursing is the other Ministry of Health intake with its own gazette and its own age window: check the nursing training criteria. If a university place is still in play, work out your A/L Z-score and the degree courses your subjects allow.