Chandrika Kumaratunga - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Born Chandrika Bandaranaike, she hales from an aristocratic family that has a long history in the socio-political arena of the country, her father, S.W.R.D Bandaranaike was a government minister at the time of her birth and later became Prime Minister. He was assassinated in 1959, when Chandrika was fourteen. Chandrika's mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike, then became the world's first female prime minister (1960). Her brother, Anura Bandaranaike, was a former Speaker of the Parliament of Sri Lanka and a former minister. Her grandfather, Sir Solomon Dias Bandaranike, was the Maha Mudaliyar, (the chief Ceylonese representative and advisor to the Governor of Ceylon) during British colonial rule.

She was educated at the St Bridget's Convent, Colombo. In 1965 she entered the Aquinas University College and gained a scholarship to the University of Paris in 1967, where she spent five years, graduating from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Science Po) in political science. While in Paris she obtained a Diploma in Group Leadership from the same University.Her Ph.D studies in Development Economics at the University of Paris were interrupted when she returned to Sri Lanka to enter politics, where her mother’s government had launched a wide ranging programme of socialist reform and development. During her days in France, she was active in the Student Revolution of 1968. She is fluent in Sinhala, English and French.

She married film star and Sri Lankan politician, Vijaya Kumaratunga (also Kumaranatunga), in 1978.