Pallikoodam
Pallikoodam or Ezhuthupally Pally is a word in Malayalam and Tamil that denotes a school.
These were mostly village schools run by individual teachers and were distinct from Kalaris that taught martial arts.
Etymology
The real meaning of Pallikkoodam is a sacred place for education. In medieval Kerala, Jain Derasars and Buddhist viharas were known as 'Ezhuthupally. When Budha bhiskhus started small schools, they were called Pallikkoodam. A generally accepted explanation of the etymology of this Malayalam word is that it is a blend word formed out of two Malayalam words Palli and Koodam. The word Palli means small village in Tamil, Sanskrit & Malayalam. Koodam means Gathering in Tamil and Malayalam. Pallikoodam means village gathering.The Malayalam word for Mosque and Church is also later referred to as "Palli" as they borrowed these words.
In Keral, Tamil Nadu, and Sri Lanka village schools are called ''Pallikoodam.
Types
There were different forms of Pallikoodams that were established across Kerala offering different levels of education, with some regional variations. Kudippallikoodam was by far the most important, popular and wide spread form, since most of the students except clerics, priests or scholarly professionals would usually stop after receiving elementary education and start working on their professions.Kudippallikoodam
Kudippallikoodam also known as 'Aashan Pallikoodam' was a popular form of schooling. This was an indigenous elementary schooling method where an instructor or aashan would teach young children about alphabets, numbers, elementary arithmetic, writing as well as general aspects of life such as personal discipline, cleanliness, morality and general knowledge. Young students are initially trained in writing by making them write on the sand.Once they are comfortable with writing on sand, the students would upgrade themselves to reporting on the standard writing medium i.e. palm leaves as the writing material and iron pen as the writing instrument to scribe on them.
In the 20th century CE, the writing medium mostly got upgraded into wooden slates and chalk. This continued to be the case until the system almost entirely died out by the dawn of the 21st century CE.