Kariyawasam is the current[when?] Secretary of the United National Party and the Jathika Sevaka Sangamaya, the trade union of the working class of Lankans, affiliated to the United National Party. He was the Minister of Education of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka from 2015 to 2019.
He was born as the fifth of six siblings. His father, William Godage Kariyawasam, served as a Registrar of the state university system and later established himself as a prominent business personality.
A graduate of the University of Colombo in Economics, Political Science and International Relations, he later pursued his secondary degree in Law at the Open University of Colombo.[3] He was appointed as the Chairman of the National Youth Front Kuliyapitiya chapter in the year 1995. In 1996, he was appointed as the District Chairman of the National Youth Front in Kuliyapitiya District, and later as the executive committee of the National Youth Front. He held these positions while he was a student of the Colombo University. At the age of 28, even without being appointed as an organizer of any electorate, he ran in the parliamentary election held in 2001.
In 2005, he was appointed as the organizer of the Kuliyapitiya electorate. He became the chairman of the National Youth Front in 2007. He took on the challenge set by his party to restructure National Youth Front at grassroot level. In 2010, he secured the second highest votes from Kurunegala district at the 2010 parliamentary election.
In the 2015 parliamentary election, he ran against the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who represented Kurunegala district. He was able to lead the list of UNP preferential votes in the Kurunegala district and was able to secure the second most votes on the island. On 12 January 2015, he was appointed as the Minister of Education in the newly formed government.
