Cotton Hill turns ‘Platinum’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The largest girls’ school in Asia, Cotton Hill Government Higher Secondary School for Girls in the city, is gearing up for its Platinum Jubilee Celebrations. A model educat
Updated on
3 min read

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The largest girls’ school in Asia, Cotton Hill Government Higher Secondary School for Girls in the city, is gearing up for its Platinum Jubilee Celebrations. A model educational institution for other government-run institutions around, the school, with a current strength of 4,899 (3,699 high school students and 1,200 higher secondary students), will kick start the year-long celebrations on Thursday.

 The school was started in 1859 by the royal family as The Maharaja Free School at Palayam, where the Government Sanskrit College is now located. During the tenure of Diwan Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer, it was divided into three - at Paruthikkunnu (translated as Cotton Hill),  Barton Hill and Manacaud. Of the three, Cotton Hill became prominent and got upgraded to a High School in 1935. The Lower Primary section was bifurcated later. When the Government decided to de-link the UP and High School for administrative purposes, it was dropped following opposition. The state-level introduction of HSS in select high schools was done at this school in November 1997 by the then Chief Minister E K Nayanar.

 Now the school has two Head Mistresses for the High School and a Principal for the HSS section. Today, the school has 159 teachers (120 in high school section and 39 in higher secondary section) and 107 classes function here at a time (87 in high school section and 20 in higher secondary).  Last year, 712 students appeared for the SSLC exam and the school got a pass percentage of 98.5.  The school has 16 Smart Classrooms and has got sanction for 16 more. Sugathakumari, Prof Hrudayakumari, K S Chitra, Nalini Netto IAS and Sreelekha IPS are among the alumnae of the school.

 The jubilee celebrations will be inaugurated by Minister for PWD and Sports M Vijayakumar at 9.30 am. V Sivankutty MLA will preside over the function. Actress Sreelatha Namboothiri will be the chief guest. Prior to the function, a procession will be taken out from Manaveeyam Road.

 The Platinum Jubilee programmes include painting competition, inter-school quiz competition, recitation competition of ONV Kurup’s poems, exhibition of paintings done by teachers and students at Museum Auditorium on December 8, 9 and 10, national seminar on ‘The role of women in nation building’, literary meetings, debate, workshop on music therapy, ghazal evening, inter-school cultural and sports meet, agricultural meet, planting of saplings, presentation of drama, Kathakali, ‘nadanpattu’ and ‘mappilappattu’, children’s drama, seminars and discussions, alumni meet, health camps and the like. A food fest featuring dishes meant to keep away lifestyle diseases and a day dedicated to the cancer patients of RCC have been included.  

 “The school has got many constraints. Yet, it has come out with stupendous results in academic and co-curricular activities. Right now, the school is trying to acquire two acres of land lying close to it and convert it into a playground, since the school does not have one,” said Sivankutty MLA, who is also the chairman of the reception committee formed  to hold the celebrations, at a news meet held at the school on Tuesday.

 “The former PTA had submitted a representation to this effect before the State Government. The land  belongs to a Club, but no activity is being carried out here. The property has got an abandoned look with lot of wild vegetation. We have got an intimation from the Government saying that our representation has been handed over to the PWD,” said Dr K V Sivakumar, president of the PTA.

The school will also build a jubilee memorial, a multi-storied building meant to deal with the space constraint at the institution.

 The news meet was also attended by Suresh Kumar, ward councillor; R Prasannakumari, principal Head Mistress and S Mini, principal, HSS.

trivandrum@expressbuzz.com

Related Stories

No stories found.

X
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com