| Devi Balika Vidyalaya, Colombo 08 | |
|---|---|
| Motto | Manasa Sanvuta Dheera "Great are those who are serene in mind" |
| Established | 1953 |
| Type | National School |
| Location | Colombo 08, Sri Lanka |
Devi Balika Vidyalaya is a girls' school in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It was founded 15.01.1953 as Castle Street Girls School. Deshabandu Dr.(Mrs.) late Wimala De Silva was the founder Principal of Devi. It began with 5 teachers and 53 students. It has produced the first lady engineer and veterinary surgeon of Sri Lanka. In 1972 girls who passed the year 5 scholarship entered Devi Balika for the first time.
"Under the recommendations of the White Paper on Education (1950), Government Girls’ College, Castle Street, Borella, was set up. This exclusive girls’ school was founded in January, 1953 with 53 students and 6 teachers, in a building constructed with pre-fabricated materials. It had classes from grade 9 to 12. The objective of the founders was to provide an education to enable its students to fulfil their potential and to meet responsibilities to the community in keeping with the school motto: "Those who are disciplined in mind are wise".
Later the name of the school was changed to ‘Devi Balika Vidyalaya’. Today it stands to be one of the leading Buddhist girls’ schools in Sri Lanka. Today girls are admitted at level of grade six, on the results of an island-wide scholarship examination.
Just as the Lotus, our emblem, is rooted in the silt of a bed of water and grows out of it and reaches towards the sun to open up to its fullest beauty, so may the girls of Devi Balika be rooted in the native soil, but reach out to the full height of knowledge and wisdom and blossom in that glow.—Dr. Mrs. Wimala de Silva, Founder Principal
Recently there are classes up to grade13 form grade 6, all of them having both Sinhala and English medium sections.