Introduction

The B.Sc. Business Administration (General) External Degree Programme is offered by the Department of Business Administration of the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. The Department was first established in 1959/1960 as the Department of Business and Public Administration. The Department of Business and Public Administration was reconstituted as Department of Management Studies in 1968. In 1980, the Department of Management Studies was split into two separate Departments, namely, Department of Business Administration and Department of Public Administration under the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce. The Department of Business Administration has been able to maintain popularity and recognition from its inception to date. The main purpose of establishing the Department of Business Administration was to offer the internal B.Sc. Business Administration (special) Degree Programme. The Business Administration internal degree has an academic history of more than 50 years as the pioneering and leading degree programme in the field of Business Management in Sri Lanka. Commencing from the academic year 2001/2002, the existing degree programme in Business Administration was completely redesigned to produce present and future human resources requirement to meet the socio- economic development of the country with a global scenario.

In this background, the Department of Business Administration introduced the B.Sc. Business Administration (General) External Degree Programme in 1997 with the aim of fulfilling the socio-economic expectations of the higher education sector of the country. It was revised in the year 2011 to cope up with the emerging global realities in the wider society.