The Faculty of Dental Sciences was originally established as a dental school as a part of faculty of medicine of University of Ceylon, Colombo in 1943. The dental school was moved to the Augosta Hill, Peradeniya due to the limited space available in Colombo. After the establishment of the faculty of medicine in Peradeniya in 1961, the dental school became a department under it. But yet the BDS (Bachelor of Dental surgery) degree was awarded from the University of Ceylon in Colombo. The Faculty of dental sciences started to function as a single faculty since 1986 after being separated from the Faculty of medicine by the University Act no;1.

In order to uplift the quality of undergraduates, a need of space for clinical training emerged. As a result, the Dental Hospital, Peradeniya was established adjacent to the Peradeniya Teaching hospital under a development project of the Japanese government in 1988. Since then, this faculty has produced thousands of qualified dental surgeons who are currently providing their service throughout Sri Lanka and all over the world as well.

Currently, the Faculty of dental Sciences functions as an individual faculty of The University of Peradeniya. The current dean of the faculty is Dr.J.A.V.P Jayasinghe. The faculty has got 7 main departments; Basic Sciences, Community Dental Health, Oral Medicine and Periodontology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Oral Pathology, Prosthetic Dentistry and Restorative Dentistry. The undergraduate course for BDS was a 4 year curriculum up to the 2014/2015 batch and from the next batch onwards, it was made a 5 year curriculum in order to improve the quality of the clinical competence of the Dental surgeons produced by the faculty.

The daily turnover of the Dental Hospital is about 200 patients. Most of the treatments are carried out by the final year Dental undergraduates under the keen supervision of the academic staff members who are specialists of the respective fields. The faculty serves for the scientific literature by carrying out several research projects in different aspects of dentistry.

Especially the researches carried out under the Center for Research in Oral Cancer plays a major role. Oral Cancer is very common among the Sri Lankan population and these researches render great help in developing new treatment protocols for treatment of cancers in head and neck region.

As the one and only Dental Faculty in Sri Lanka Peradeniya Dental Faculty has glorified its name being one of the finest dental faculties in South East Asia. It is a fortune that the only Dental faculty in Sri Lanka is a part of our glorious mother, University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.