Pallikoodam

Pallikoodam, the academic brainchild of Mary Roy, mother of famous writer Arundhati Roy, is a progressive, interdisciplinary, and highly educational elementary-high school. Nestled on a little hill in the town of Kotayyam in the backwaters of Kerala, Pallikoodam blends dedicated students and equally committed teachers, providing each student an education in Malayalam, English, and Hindi. On top of engaging in what one student called a “difficult course load,” with “the toughest marks in India,” the students spend half of their day practicing yoga, drama, and swimming, coupled with other untraditional school-time activities. As one might expect from activist Mary Roy, the students are taught the ever too untaught gift of community action, with significant emphasis on environmental and social activism.  Mary Roy's long, rich history of women's activism, peaked with her 1986 supreme court victory, is deserving of tremendous recognition, and in many ways, Pallikoodam bolsters her legacy of activism.

Upon our arrival, the students impressed us with a play about dowry marriages and the suppression of women. The play dealt with intellectual discourse far beyond the standard of most 10th and 12th graders. According to the students, some time ago they created an even more moving play about an Endosulfane plant in Kottayam. They performed the play outside the plant in protest of pollution and worker rights, which brought observers to tears and ultimately led to the closure of the plant.
The students at this school received what seemed to be some of the best, most diverse education in the world. Two teachers in every class, beautiful, carefully architected buildings, and a swimming pool were just a few of the benefits. But high quality education with luxuries doesn’t come without a cost; the students of Pallikoodam are of the elite social and economic tear of Kerala. In fact, only 1-2 scholarships are offered per class, and administrators stated that this was for the ‘students to interact with all types of people.’ Though activism was embodied in the curriculum, it was not carried into distributive justice through scholarship.  Mary Roy explained that she attempted to bring in students from a nearby orphanage, but that even their Malayalam was not satisfactory enough to keep up with the standards of Pallikoodam, which sheds light on a complicated slew issues of India's education and income gaps, even in Kerala.

According to Anil Verghase, the scholar, as well as June, a school administrator, there are basically two types of public school and three tiers of private as well as charter . The two types of public are state funded schools taught in English, and state funded schools taught in Malayalam, the latter being much more common. The private system, largely taught exclusively in English, has tiers divided by cost and quality. Pallikoodam is on the top of this hierarchy, as one of the most expensive and high profile schools in Kerala.

Overall, the school offers a high quality, alternative-style education. Yet, in order to truly embody the social justice mission of the school, changes must be made in the type of students who have access to such education. It is clear that certain financial obstacles stand in the way of empowering the poor through high-quality, attention to detail schools such as Pallikoodam. But if Mary Roy is to bolster social justice, mere teaching isn’t enough. Social justice is the tool of the poor for the benefit of the poor. Without educating the poor, the mission of social justice will never be achieved.

Luke Kaplan