Technical College Courses List Sri Lanka (DTET 2026)
Every course the Department of Technical Education and Training runs, all 1,000 offerings at 39state technical institutes, searchable by district, college, trade and NVQ level. Full-time courses are free; each card shows the fee, the length, the course code and the college's career-guidance number.
How it works
This page is a filter over a published register, not a model. DTET lists its course offerings on one page and its colleges on two others; the finder joins them so that one search answers both “what can I study here” and “who do I call”. Everything below is DTET's own text or a transformation of it that is documented here and in the module header.
Colleges. The two directory pages list 39 institutes, 9 Colleges of Technology and 30 Technical Colleges, and the course register names 39as well. The two sets agree only after four spellings are reconciled: the register writes “Akkaraipatthu” for Akkaraipattu, “Nuwara-Eliya” for Nuwara Eliya, and a lower-case “Technical college” on Matale and Hasalaka. After normalising, the symmetric difference between directory and register is empty, which the page asserts rather than assumes: if a future re-transcription breaks it, the check below fails instead of a college quietly disappearing.
Trades. The register prints 18 trade strings for 16 trades. Electrical, Electronics & Telecommunicationappears three ways, including DTET's own typo “Electroanics”, and all three spellings occur inside one college. They are merged into one trade here, and each trade keeps the source spellings it was built from.
Level awarded.The register's Qualification column holds the level the course awards, not an entry requirement, and it is blank on 144rows. The rule is: read the Qualification cell; if it is blank, read the level out of the course title (“National Diploma in Automobile Technology (NVQ 05)”); and only if neither names a level, record it as a certificate. DTET never prints “NVQ 05” in the column, so every one of the 144 National Diplomas is resolved from its title, and all 144 blanks resolve, none falling through. The mix is 157 NVQ 3, 644 NVQ 4, 144 NVQ 5, 27 NVQ 6 and 28 language certificates, summing to 1,000.
Fee.From DTET's enrolment page: no fee for a full-time course; Rs 25,000 per annum for a part-time course of more than one year; Rs 30,000for the full course at exactly one year, with instalments allowed; Rs 20,000 for a six-month course; and Rs 10,000 for a “three month or six month” course. The last two overlap, the source gives two figures for the same length, so a six-month part-time course is shown here as Rs 10,000 – Rs 20,000 with the contradiction stated, never resolved by guesswork. As it happens no part-time course in the current register is six or three months long, so the overlap changes no fee on the page today.
Whole-course cost.“Per annum” is exact only for a whole number of years. 89 of the 107 part-time offerings run 12, 24 or 36 months and have an exact total; 18 run 18, 30 or 54 months, and DTET does not say whether the part year is charged pro rata or as a whole year. Those show the range between the two readings instead of a single invented figure.
District. The town-to-district mapping is stored as data, not inferred from the name: Maradana, Ratmalana and Homagama are all Colombo. 23 districts have an institute; Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi have none.
Worked examples
Verification
The register is transcribed, so the page checks itself. Each row below is re-derived from the data at render time and compared with the count read off DTET's pages on 2026-10-03. The level check is the strict one: it counts DTET's printed Qualification cells independently and asserts that the resolved levels match them one for one, with every blank cell accounted for.
26 of 26 checks pass.
| Check | From DTET | Re-derived |
|---|---|---|
| Offerings in the register | 1000 | 1000 |
| Institutes in the directories | 39 | 39 |
| Colleges of Technology | 9 | 9 |
| Technical Colleges | 30 | 30 |
| Institutes named in the course register | 39 | 39 |
| Directory vs register, names not in both | 0 | 0 |
| Distinct course names | 100 | 100 |
| Distinct course codes | 107 | 107 |
| Trades after normalising | 16 | 16 |
| Trade spellings in the source | 18 | 18 |
| Full-time offerings | 893 | 893 |
| Part-time offerings | 107 | 107 |
| Full-time + part-time | 1000 | 1000 |
| NVQ 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / Certificate | 157/644/144/27/28 | 157/644/144/27/28 |
| Level mix sums to the register | 1000 | 1000 |
| Levels agree with DTET's printed column | yes | yes |
| Levels resolved from the course title | 144 | 144 |
| Durations outside the published set | 0 | 0 |
| Offerings per institute, summed | 1000 | 1000 |
| Offering keys that are unique | 1000 | 1000 |
| College of Technology - Kurunegala | 34 | 34 |
| Kurunegala full-time / part-time | 30/4 | 30/4 |
| Kurunegala trades after normalising | 8 | 8 |
| Offerings named "Professional Cookery" | 6 | 6 |
| Technical College - Medagama | 3 | 3 |
| Districts with an institute | 23 | 23 |
What each qualification level means
| Award | Offerings | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| NVQ 3 | 157 | National Certificate, a full craftsman-level competency. |
| NVQ 4 | 644 | National Certificate at craftsman/technician level, the most common award here. |
| NVQ 5 | 144 | National Diploma, technician level. |
| NVQ 6 | 27 | Higher National Diploma, the highest award DTET makes. |
| Certificate | 28 | DTET prints “Certificate” with no NVQ level. Every one is a language course, English, Korean or Japanese. |
The NVQ award itself is statutory, made under the Tertiary and Vocational Education Act No. 20 of 1990. The largest trade in the register is Building & Construction with 299 offerings; the smallest is Gem & Jewellery with 1.
Frequently asked questions
Sources & references
- DTET: Course Details (the full course register)
- DTET: Colleges of Technology directory (9 institutes, with contacts)
- DTET: Technical Colleges directory (30 institutes, with contacts)
- DTET: Student Enrollment Procedure (the fee schedule and application route)
- DTET: Calling for Applications (the current intake notice)
- DTET: course register, Sinhala edition
- DTET: course register, Tamil edition
- Tertiary and Vocational Education Act No. 20 of 1990 (LawNet): the statutory basis for the NVQ award
The register and both directories were transcribed from dtet.gov.lk on 2026-10-03. The page is due a re-check by 2026-11-03, before the intake gazette moves, the 2026 one was published on 2025-10-30. Intake dates, per-course entry requirements and student bursaries are deliberately not modelled here: DTET sets them in the gazette each year, so this page links the notice instead of printing a figure that would go stale.
Related tools
Comments & feedback
Spotted a bug or want an improvement? Tell us, our team reviews every comment, and good ideas get built. Comments are public and anonymous.
Spotted a course DTET has added, dropped or renamed since 2026-10-03?
Email me at [email protected] , most fixes ship within 24 hours.