General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (KDU) located at Kandawala, Ratmalana, Colombo, is a joint services academy where cadets of the three wings Sri Lanka Army, Sri Lanka Navy and Sri Lanka Air Force are trained before they go for their pre-commission training to their academies. Formerly The General Sir John Kotelawala Defence Academy, it was renamed as a university by an amendment bill passed in Parliament on October 11, 2007. It was established in 1980 and is named after General Sir John Kotelawala, 3rd Prime Minister of Ceylon. The General Sir John Kotelawala Defence Academy (the Defence University of Sri Lanka) was inaugurated on the 11 October 1980 on a 48-acre (190,000 m) estate donated by the late General Sir John Kotelawala CH KBE LLD, a former Prime Minister of Ceylon. The KDA functions under the motto “For The Motherland Forever”, a dictum followed by General Sir John Kotelawala himself. The KDA was instituted with the objective of educating males and females to be commissioned officers in the armed forces of Sri Lanka. It has been legally established under the Sir John Kotelawala Defence Academy Act No.