In September 2002, University of Colombo School of Computing (UCSC) was established by merging The Institute of Computer Technology and The Department of Computer Science both of the University of Colombo, as the first centre of higher learning of computing in Sri Lanka. The number of students admitted to these programmes may be increased in the coming years. Three M.Sc programmes in Computer Science, Information Technology and Advanced Computing, which admitted a total of 200 students, were started in the year 2002. M.Phil and Ph.D programmes were introduced by the UCSC in the year 2002. Computer Science course modules are also conducted for first, second, third and fourth year students of the Physical and Bio Science streams of the Faculty of Science, University of Colombo. The vision of the UCSC is to be a centre of international repute in training in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).
The UCSC is fully equipped with nine student laboratories, two multi media laboratories, two research laboratories, a campus wide fibre network, with the entire UCSC building complex fully wired for Internet access. UCSC has a state of the art network-operating centre. The library is well equipped with Books, Journals, CDs and provides Internet access to e-journals. The UCSC is involved in many research areas such as, Natural & Local Language Processing, Human Computer Interfaces, Image Processing and Vision, Cryptographic Systems, Multi Media and Virtual Reality, Intelligent Agent Systems, Pattern Recognition, Distributed Systems, Information Retrieval and Data Mining, Process Broker Modeling Systems, Web Based Business Services, Multi Media Database Systems, e-Learning, Strategic Planning & Management of IT, IT Policy and Multi Database Systems.
The major goal of the UCSC is to prepare students for careers in Information and Communication Technology as Software Developers, Systems Analysts, Network Administrators, Database Administrators, Web Developers, IT Managers, IT Strategic Planners and IT Policy Makers.
Ordinance Gazetted on 15th Nov 2002 (GZT NO. 1262/32).