The Attakulangara Central High School should be protected and alternative sites should be found for the proposed bus bay and shopping complexes. The school is in the eye of a storm over the Trivandrum Development Authority (TRIDA)’s plan to take over a part of its land for the development of the East Fort area. The school should be upgraded to higher secondary level to attract more students. The school authorities and the PTA had been putting forth the request since 2004. ttakulangara Central School[1] is situated in the middle of Trivandrum city area, the 124-year-old Government Central High School. The school was founded as the Native High School in 1889 by T. Marthandan Thampi who was also its first Headmaster. Later, the Government took over the school, renaming it as Attakulangara Vernacular School and sometime thereafter, renaming it again as Central High School, Attakkulangara. On its list of former teachers are poet Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer, former Chief Minister Pattom A. Thanu Pillai (chemistry), social reformer Sahodaran Ayyappan, former Chief Justice of erstwhile Travancore, U. Padmanabha Kukkiliya, Swami Vedachalam (Tamil), Marai Malai Adigal, and so on. Its alumni includes Subramanian who secured first rank in the SSLC in 1971 and also former Minister M.M. Hassan. The school had 1,700 students in 1988 and 1,200 in 1998. In 2008 it came down to 200 and, at present, it has only 60. Students are mostly from the nearby Karimadom Colony and some from far off places. Many of them come to attend the Tamil medium. Over a dozen teachers under the leadership of B. Vikraman teach at the school. There is a Subramaniam Memorial bell tower. The school seems to have had a performance hall. An open auditorium is still there. Narasimham Thampi, a choreographer and singer, in his unpublished autobiography Jeevitha Smaranakal mentions that this hall had witnessed performances and concerts of stalwarts in Carnatic music such as Ariakkudi. The School also taught Kathakali since 1970s until the turn of the century.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 06:41:58 +0000
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