Pinnawala Central College was established in 1882 as the 'Government Boys' School' on of land with 45 students and 6 teachers in one building. There were no written records from 1882 to 1926. According to the written history, Mr. Brampisingo was the first principal, appointed from 1920–1926. In the beginning, there were only a few classes that covered the local syllabus for grades 1 to 5. In 1956, the school was upgraded to a mixed(co-educational) school. The school student population also got increased drastically from 1926 to 1958 and new buildings and staff were added to the school. A contribution was offered by a philanthropist and politician,
N. H. Keerthiratne, and S. A. Lokubandara Bentota. In 1963, the opportunity was obtained to follow the Advanced Level Examination in Arts stream increased the classes from grades 1–12 and laid the path for more students to enrol at the school. Students were allowed to enter the Advanced Level in the science stream in 1964 and later in the commerce stream; it became a national school on 12 September 1995 with grades 6–13. The school's own land was expanded to , hosting 45 buildings. Two double-storey buildings were opened as male and female hostels on of land. The school offers a large rectangular playground, a library, and an audio-visual unit laboratory, for G.C.E. O/L, an Information Technology unit, a Home Science unit, an Agriculture unit, an Aesthetic unit, a Scout troop, a Cadet unit, and an Environmental unit. ==Houses==