The President's and ATC Colours presented to the ATC in 1972, were laid to rest with the change of its name to Sri Lanka Military Academy. An intensive course in the English language is conducted during the first six months of training to enhance proficiency of the Officer Cadets in English Language. During a two-year period, they are trained in leadership, tactics, weapons training, law, military accounting systems and academic studies. At any one time, five to six hundred Officer Cadets are trained at the SLMA. With this, the Army Training Centre was renamed as the Sri Lanka Military Academy (SLMA), and since then it has been totally utilized for training of Officer Cadets. With the expansion and the growing need to train large numbers of recruits, recruit training was assigned to respective regiments. Since then Officer Cadets were locally trained and commissioned. The first Intake of Officer Cadets who were earmarked to be trained at the Army Training Centre, Diyatalawa, was enlisted on 16 April 1968. Therefore, arrangements were then made to train Officer Cadets locally. Overseas training however, was not sufficient to meet the growing needs of the Army. Subsequently, Officer Cadets were trained at the Indian Military Academy and the Pakistan Military Academy. The first batch of Officer Cadets was enlisted to the Army on 10 October 1949 and were dispatched to RMA Sandhurst. But facilities did not exist to train officers, and therefore Officer Cadets were sent to the Royal Military Academy (RMA), Sandhurst in the United Kingdom. The ARTD was later named as the Army Training Centre (ATC). The first batch of 114 recruits passed out from the ARTD on 02 June 1950. The then Army Recruit Training Depot (ARTD) was therefore formed in Diyatalawa on 6 February 1950 for the purpose of training recruits. When the Army was raised in 1949, the need arose to recruit and train officers and soldiers of the newly formed army.
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