Sri Lanka’s Cabinet has approved transferring the SAARC Cultural Centre premises in Nawimana, Matara, to the Ministry of Education, to give the Ocean University of Sri Lanka its first permanent campus.
The decision was announced by Cabinet Spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa, EconomyNext reported at 4.32 p.m. on Tuesday.
The property
The site is an 11-acre plot carrying 200,000 square feet of partially completed building space. It was built as a regional cultural centre under the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation and was never finished.
The Ministry of Buddhasasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs, which holds the property, has given its concurrence for the handover.
The problem it solves
The Ocean University of Sri Lanka “currently operates out of several rented premises, and this transfer will provide a dedicated facility for its academic programs,” Jayatissa said. The university has no single permanent campus.
The transfer would let the state complete the existing buildings and end the university’s practice of operating across scattered rented spaces. It is, in effect, a swap of one stalled public asset for one unmet public need — an unfinished building with no occupant, and an institution with no building.
This was decided in stages
The approval is not a sudden decision. It follows a directive issued at a Cabinet meeting on 1 June 2026, at which ministers instructed the Secretary to the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education to examine whether the buildings and premises could be used for educational or vocational training purposes.
Officials conducted that feasibility study and concluded that transferring the site to the Ocean University was the most suitable step. “It has been determined that it is appropriate to transfer the cultural centre premises to establish the Ocean University and expand training opportunities,” the briefing said.
Four and a half months passed between the instruction to study the question and Tuesday’s decision.
A name collision to be careful about
The Ocean University of Sri Lanka operates from multiple rented sites, and this archive already contains a story about one of them: a case involving a lecturer at the university’s Negombo campus, reported on 3 October. That is a different location and an entirely unrelated matter. A search of this archive for “Ocean University” now returns both, and nothing connects them.
Separately, the SAARC Cultural Centre named here is the unfinished Matara property. SAARC maintains cultural institutions in several member states, and the regional body’s name on a building does not indicate an active programme at this site.
Not reported
The filing does not say what the completion of the buildings will cost, who will fund it, or when the university expects to occupy the site. It does not state how much of the 200,000 square feet is usable as it stands, how long construction has been halted, or what was originally spent on it.
Nothing published says how many students or programmes would move to Matara, whether the rented premises will be given up, or what becomes of the site’s intended cultural function. No filing records a SAARC response to the repurposing of a facility built under its name.
On sourcing. This is a single-source report. This desk searched the other verified newsrooms for an independent filing on the same decision and traced none; Hiru covered two other decisions from Tuesday’s post-Cabinet briefing but not this one, and the cabinet office’s own decisions page could not be reached from this host.
Sources: EconomyNext — Sri Lanka transfers SAARC Cultural Centre in Matara to Ocean University.
