Speech and Hearing Sciences in Sri Lanka: Careers, Curriculum & Future Outlook

📘 Overview

Speech and Hearing Sciences trains the professionals who help people communicate — assessing and treating speech, language, voice, swallowing and hearing difficulties across all ages. Offered as a four-year degree by the University of Kelaniya, it is a clinical, deeply rewarding allied-health field. It suits caring, patient and communicative students who want to transform lives, from helping a child learn to speak to restoring an adult's hearing or recovery after a stroke.

It earns a future-proof score of 8.5 because there is a serious shortage of speech and language therapists and audiologists in Sri Lanka, demand is rising worldwide with greater awareness of communication and hearing disorders, and the personalised, human therapy involved is highly resistant to automation.

📚 What You'll Study

The programme combines language and hearing science with extensive clinical training.

• Anatomy and physiology of speech and hearing
• Linguistics and phonetics
• Speech, language and communication disorders
• Audiology and hearing science
• Voice, fluency and swallowing disorders
• Paediatric and adult clinical practice
• Counselling and rehabilitation
• Clinical placements and a research project

⏳ Duration

This is a four-year B.Sc. degree in Speech and Hearing Sciences, including substantial clinical training.

✅ Entry Requirements

This programme is open to applicants from any A/L stream — Arts, Biological Science or Physical Science — with a talent component. To be eligible you must obtain at least Simple (S) passes in any three subjects at the G.C.E. (Advanced Level) Examination, and pass the Aptitude Test conducted by the University of Kelaniya.

Final selection also depends on your Z-score, which varies by university and district every year — check your eligibility with the free tool on findmydegree.lk.

🏛️ Where It's Offered

• University of Kelaniya — 75 seats

ℹ️ Entry requirements, seats and universities are sourced from official UGC data (2024/2025 A/L). Career and curriculum details are general guidance — confirm specifics with each university.