Pushpadana Girls' College, Kandy

On 31 May 1941 the idea of establishing a school to provide English education to Buddhist girls was born out of a speech made by E. W. Adhikaram at the 34th Anniversary Meeting of the Sri Pushpadana Society, Kandy. The school was established on 2 July 1942 as a learning institution for Buddhist girls in a small building by "Sri Pushpadana Samithiya" housed in Trincomalee Street, Kandy. The school was inaugurated by the Minister of Health, George E. de Silva. The founding principal was Chlora Dias Wijetilleke, the Chairman of the Sri Pushpadana Society, as well as wife of Attorney-at-Law, S. A. Wijethilake. She was a first class English teacher and started the school with a staff of six and three students. The alphabet was read to the first three students by the Minister of Education, C. W. W. Kannangara. During her tenure, the school won Kandy District First Place and All Island Gold Award for the year 2010 report as well as Kandy District First Place and All Island Bronze Award for Report 2011 and Kandy District Second Place and Central Provincial First Place for Report 2012. Then the school won the All Island Platinum Award for Report 2013, Central Province First Place for 2014 Report (Co) and Central Provincial First Place for 2016 Report. In 2016, the 'Diya Keliya' dance and the 'Naga Kanya' solo dance presented at the 2016 All Island Dance Competition won the first place. In 2017, the school became the winners of the 'Danumai Wasanawai' Quiz Tournament in the Kandy District sponsored by DSI Super Sports. At the same time, Pushpadana won the First place in the All Ceylon Air Cadet Assessment Camp in the year 2016 and second place in the year 2017. ==Achievements==

In 2015, the school won the Kandy District Girls under 19 schools basketball Championship. In 2017, Under-14 hockey team won the ‘Golden Star’ award at the 17th Sri Lanka Schools Hockey Carnival 2017. In 2020, Ruchini Niwarthana won third Place of Sri Lankan Biology Olympiad 2020. ==Education==

The school currently has about 2,000 students and 130 teachers. Therevada Buddhism has largely been an integral part of the school's education system, as it is in all Sri Lankan Buddhist public schools. The students for the school are selected mainly through grade 5 scholarship programme. Grades are from 6 to 13. The school provides all A/L disciplines from Science stream to Technology Stream. In 2015, Nirasha Nadeeshani Kularatne won the All Island second place in the Arts stream according to the results of the GCE (A/L) examination. In 2016, according to the results of the GCE (O/L) examination, Pushpadana won the Kandy District first place, the Central Province the second place and the All Island the fourth place. Also, the percentage qualified for GCE (A/L) was 100% and the overall percentage in all subjects was 100%. According to the GCE (A/L) results of the years 2015 and 2016, the School won the first places in both the streams of Biosystems Technology and Engineering Technology. == Past principals ==

The students are divided into four houses. The house names are derived from Buddhist history. The houses compete annually in all major games to win inter-house games and competitions. • – Sangamiththa • – Yasodhara • – Chithra • – Gothami ==Notable alumni==

• Chandrika Siriwardena - Singer • Nadeeka Gunasekara - Actress == See also ==