Education
Kottayam District have 151 schools ,23 Arts Colleges,and 16 Professional Colleges.
The Orthodox Pazhaya Seminary of the Malankara Orthodox Church was the first institution to start English education in Southern India. C.M.S High School, (now Church Missionary Society College High School), was founded by the British missionary, Benjamin Bailey of the Church Mission Society of London.C.M.S.College, the first college in Kerala, was started in Kottayam in 1817 by the Church Missionary Society. The Baker Memorial Girls High School in Kottayam, founded by Amalia Dorothea Baker in 1820, is one of the oldest girls' schools in India.
There are a number of Arts & Science Colleges, including C.M.S. College Kottayam,K.G.College pampady, BCM College etc. There are government engineering colleges, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology,Kidangoor engineering college are some near the town, self financed engineering colleges are also there in kottayam Mangalam college of engineering and technology, Saintgits college of engineering and technology, StJoseph college of engineering and technology are some of the main colleges in the district.
MAHATHMA GANDHI UNIVERSITY, KOTTAYAM
Mahatma Gandhi University, one of the four affiliating universities in Kerala, is the premier educational institution that strives to fulfil the higher educational needs of the people of Central Kerala. Set on the sprawling 110-acre campus called Priyadarsini Hills at Athirampuzha, 13 kms off Kottayam, the University also has seven satellite campuses in parts of Kottayam and the neighbouring districts. The University was established on 2 October 1983 and has jurisdiction over the revenue districts of Kottayam, Ernakulam, Idukki and parts of Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha. It is a University that conducts a range of programmes at the undergraduate, postgraduate, M Phil and doctoral levels through its 16 University Departments, 7 Self-Financing Departments, 82 Aided Affiliated Colleges (of which 8 are Colleges with Potential for Excellence), 158 Unaided Affiliated Colleges and 73 Recognized Research Institutes. It imparts education in the conventional disciplines of science, social science and the humanities as well as in the professional disciplines of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dentistry, engineering, technology, pedagogy and legal studies. The University has also made its educational presence felt outside its territorial jurisdiction through the Off-campus Centres of the School of Distance Education.
KOTTAYAM MEDICAL COLLEGE
The institution is affliated to the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam with an annual intake of 100 MBBS students, 83 Post-Graduate students 15 Laboratory Technology students, 15 Radiographers 30 Pharmacy Diploma students and 50 BSc Nursing students and 8 super speciality students.
Other institutes include the Centre for rural management (CRM), Kottayam (a leading autonomous research organizations for rural development), and the Indian Institute of Mass Communication.
