[1] These were mostly village schools run by individual teachers (Ezhuthu pally Aashaans or Asans or Gurus) and were distinct from Kalaris that taught martial arts.
The Christian churches or monasteries were turned into educational institutes as the demand went high for teachings and learning.
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.
This was an indigenous elementary schooling method where an instructor or aashan (ആശാൻ) 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.
This initiative tried to revive the use of wooden slates instead of paper notebooks and pencils for teaching Malayalam and has received significant attention from parents.