THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chances are that the most noted women writers, bureaucrats, doctors and opinion leaders from the city all studied at the Cotton Hill school, one of the oldest schools for girls in the city.
On coming Tuesday, as Oommen Chandy inaugurates the 75th anniversary of Cotton Hill LP School at 2.30 pm, the school awaits the great women who studied at the school to come for a reunion.
Until the year 1940, the girl students in the city had just one school to study at - the Girls’ High School in Palayam originally started for Christian girls and opened for girl students from all religions, according to Sharath Sunder Rajeev, a conservation architect.
1940 was a golden year in the history of girls’ education for Thiruvananthapuram, as the Diwan decided to open three schools for girls. Historian Malayinkeezhu Gopalakrishnan says, “Sir C P Ramaswamy Iyer decided to decentralise girls’ education and started girls’ schools at Cotton Hill, Barton Hill and Manacaud. There was an LP School already functioning at Cotton Hill, which was upgraded to a girls’ high school.”
Barton Hill Girls’ High School had to be shut down, but the campus is used for another educational institution - Barton Hill Government Engineering College.
Cotton Hill has managed to survive the vicissitudes of time. Cotton Hill LPS to this day attracts students from far-flung corners in the city.
We find its history not just in government documents, but autobiographies of renowned women in the city. “Among the famous people who studied at the school was writer B Hridayakumari who passed away recently. She speaks about her time at the school in her autobiography,” says Malayinkeezh.
There will certainly be so many more. The school invites every illustrious person, well-known or not, who studied at the school and every teacher who made such a history possible, for a grand reunion on Tuesday.
