Need for teaching Tamil to Tamil children was felt paramount important by the Sydney Tamil community in early eighties. The well-organised Saiva Mantram pioneered in establishing a Tamil School in Homebush exclusively for Tamils migrated from Sri Lanka. However, another Tamil School, Balar Malar, in Ashfield that was run mainly by Tamils from India have been successfully teaching Tamil for more than five years at that time. Homebush Tamil School blossomed and attracted Tamils from many parts of Sydney. When the number of students had grown in manyfold, another school was created at Wentworthville to serve for the students from western suburbs. Henceforth two more study centres were created at Eastwood and Mt. Druitt later in 1991.
Mr T. Baheerathan from Eastwood with the backing of Saiva Mantram officials such as Kanapathippillai, Balendra, Sundaresan and Rajan approached the parents of Tamils living in and around Eastwood for support to organise a Tamil school in Eastwood. The parents who gathered at Paheerathan’s residence in the inaugural meeting showed great enthusiasm in starting a school in Eastwood. Mr Baheerathan was elected as president and Mr Krishnamoorthy as principal in the founding executive committee of the Eastwood Tamil Study Centre. Due to facility needs, in the beginning the centre had classes at Denistone Primary School every Saturday. Enthusiastic parents were functioning as Teachers. After two years the study centre was moved to Eastwood Primary School because of better transport facilities.
Within a year after the creation of Eastwood Tamil Study Centre, Saiva Mandram decided to separate Tamil studies from their activities to function independently. This restructuring was necessitated to avoid the complications in obtaining the government grants as well as relinquishing religious identity to Tamil Studies. A coordinating committee of all Tamil schools in NSW was formed to replace the role that was played by the Saiva Mantram. “Balar Malar” Tamil school had joined this committee too. This committee thereafter institutionalised and named as ‘New South Wales Federation of Tamil Schools.”
At the parents and teachers meeting in 1995, our centres objective was defined. All parents who were at the meeting voiced in unison that their children were coming with intention to study Tamil. To achieve this objective, at the meeting all felt that importance of an interactive social life for Tamil students and parents too. It was agreed accordingly that objectives were to be defined without forced feeding of Tamil education. The following objectives were hence defined and adhere to at our school:
Ø To train the students to comprehend, speak, read and write in Tamil
Ø To help the students to acquire the knowledge of Tamil culture and arts
Ø To create an environment for students to interact hence making a social life
Ø To enhance the students’ own skills by creating and participating the stage performances.
(Source: Secretary’s Report, 10th Annual Book of Eastwood Tamil Study Centre)