It was made a university by an amendment bill passed in Parliament on 11 October 2007 which enabled both military and civilian students to be admitted.

[4] The KDA was instituted with the objective of educating males and females to be commissioned officers in the armed forces of Sri Lanka.

[10][12] In 2018, parliament of Sri Lanka passed the General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University (Special Provisions) Act[13] to abolish medical faculty of South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine and to transfer the students to General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University.

[15] In June 2021, the State Minister of Internal Security, Home Affairs and Disaster Management presented the Sir John Kotelawala National Defence University Bill (Special Provisions),[16] proposing legislative changes to the governing structure of the KDU.

This bill has been challenged by several groups including scholars and university students that have claimed the move could lead to privatization and militarization of the higher education in Sri Lanka.

As a result, unlike other state universities and higher education institutes in Sri Lanka that are governed by the UGC, KDU has the authority to regulate itself.

In actuality, the KDU statute legalizes a full parallel military administration structure for civil higher education purposes with autonomy.

The officer cadets follow a course of study from the fields of medicine, law, engineering, management and technical sciences, commerce or arts.