The Department of Sinhala is one of the largest departments in the Faculty of Humanities in the University of Kelaniya. Nearly 500 students enroll for the courses conducted by this department annually. At present the Sinhala Department of the Kelaniya University is a fully fledged department with a highly qualified staff. One Senior Professor, five Full Professors, one Associate Professor, one Senior Lecturer with a Ph. D. Degree, five Senior Lecturers and four Probationary Lectures are among them and some of them are competent in English, Russian, Japanese, Hindi and other oriental languages such as Pali & Sanskrit.

Classical and Modern Sinhala Literature, Evaluation of Sinhala Language and Paleography, Performing and Recording Arts, Metrics, Rhetoric and Oriental and Occidental Criticism, Sinhala Exegetical Literature,  Sinhala Paleography and Inscriptions, Sinhala Culture and Folk lore, Art and Architecture  are offered by the department of Sinhala for the Bachelor of Arts General and Special degrees.

From 2010 the Sinhala Department has introduced a Bachelor of Arts (General) degree course in Literary Criticism. Based on the highest marks at the B.A. first year examination, students are recruited for the B. A. (Special) degree program.

The candidate who has acquired high marks in the Sinhala Special Degree will be awarded a Gold Medal by the Professor D. J. Wijerathna Memorial Foundation.

Any student who belongs to the Faculties of Science, Commerce and Management Studies, Social Sciences and Humanities can follow an auxiliary course unit - Practical Sinhala I & II offered by the Department if they have not studied Sinhala for G.C.E. (A/L) examination. Furthermore an Auxiliary course unit - Modern Sinhala Writing Skills- is offered for the students who are not studying Sinhala for their degree as a subject but have studied Sinhala for the G.C.E. ( A/L) examination.