
Sainik School Amaravathinagar History
Sainik Schools were conceptualised in 1961 by the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and the then Defence Minister Shri VK Krishna Menon, to rectify the regional and class imbalance amongst the officer cadre of the Indian Military, and to prepare students mentally and physically for entry into the National Defence Academy (NDA) and the Indian Naval Academy (INA).

Sainik School for Madras State was initially planned at Kodaikanal but soon it was shifted to Amaravathinagar. As all good things, Sainik School Amaravathinagar too was conceived with a noble ambition and started growing in a small place in the sylvan surroundings in the leeward side of the Western Ghats.
Keeping with the tradition, like any other ancient civilisation, the Amaravian community too started growing on the banks of river Amaravathi—a name which gets translated into English as the Abode of Gods. It was founded on 16 Jul 1962 under the command of Lt Col D N Sahni.
A few recruitments were made and the team arrived on the chosen destination- a seemingly humble place that has triggered the success journey of the chosen elite of the country. The forsaken buildings—the temporary quarters built for the personnel on the job of constructing the Amaravathi Dam which were just then vacated became Sainik School, Amaravathinagar. They proved the much repeated saying—it is not the buildings that make a school: the founding fathers of the school turned every shortcoming as a stepping stone and steadily marched ahead...The hostile and wild territory with its wildest fauna, proved to be a much better place for the adventurous little kids to grow into the flamboyant young men. Unmindful of the hardships in the shacks, the school flourished from the scramble...
The PWD office became the academic block and a few more rooms for labs were soon built and the iconic arch came standing by the side of the main road started announcing the name of the school "Sainik School, Amaravathinagar" to the entire world. The PWD MT shed became the Cadets' Mess, the accommodation for the Assistant Engineers and the Junior Engineers became the dormitories. The ancient Tamil Empires lent their names to the houses and now every AMARVIAN is either a Proud Cheran, a mighty Cholan, a pious Pandyan or an invincible Pallavan. The new entrants are in feeder houses, VALLUVAR and BHARATHI named after the ever cherished Tamil poets.


The slopes of the hillocks were levelled and the Oval Ground was formed housing a 400mts 8 lane track, a hockey and football ground. This prestigious sports facility is the heart of SSA to this day and throughout the year every bustling sports activity is held here. After the academic block, the present senior dormitories were added on the Sainik map: of course the saga of the asbestos was kept up. Only the early eighties saw the removal of the asbestos from the top of the senior dormitories and the RCC roofing was done but not before the addition of four junior dormitories. In the meantime the school also got an MI Room complex with sixteen beds, a firing range, a swimming pool, a stable, a concrete tennis court, and two concrete basketball grounds. The labs were built in front of the academic block, on the way to the Oval Grounds.
The academic block was found to be a very small one and was insufficient when the school grew in strength. A much spacious and well-planned academic block was inaugurated in August 1969. This new Instructional Block consisted of three wings, the first one housing the Headmaster's and the Senior Master’s offices, library, and two very big rooms functioning as the labs. The other two wings, viz upper and lower wings, catered for the classrooms. The staff room was between the library and the upper wing. Avvai Auditorium with its huge stage was just overlooking the staffroom. Then came the conference hall again a very spacious one, acoustically designed to conduct meetings and conferences, was named ‘Nehru Hall’. Very soon the lab complex with annexed lecture galleries was appended to the Instructional block on the northern side.
The burden of the cadets was reduced when the new cadets’ mess, a huge one, was built on the cadets’ road exactly halfway between the dorms and the new academic block. This was a thoughtfully designed mess complex with a very big kitchen, a spacious bakery, vegetable stores, room for grinders, room for flouring machine and rice huller, rooms for the dry ration stores, etc., and of course a spacious lawn in the front. The 40 KVA power generator was housed here to relieve us of the trouble of frequent power cuts. The dorms are connected with underground cables. Amutham Cafeteria was first started in the Mess Lawn and later was provided with a concrete structure there itself. The mess had a very big lawn where the cadets used to fall in for the roll calls. The Senior Staff Club too found this the apt place for its get-togethers. At a later stage, this lawn lost its grass to the interlocking tiles, and the cadets were the ultimate beneficiaries—their shoes were saved from the marshy swamp and muddy pools.
In 1981, Kudil, the school guest house was built on the hillock, on the other side of the Cadet’s Road, between the Cadet’s Mess and the Senior Dorms. The residential block behind the Sainik House, the Principal’s residence, was also converted into a guest house to cope with the growing demand. The metal roads that ran between the dorms were later tarred and new connecting roads were built wherever necessary and now there is a maze of roads that connects every single building with the other. The alumni’s tokens of gratitude to their alma mater in the form of infrastructure development are unique and a rare gesture not found elsewhere. The batches which celebrate their silver jubilee / golden jubilee of their passing out give back to the school in a big way as well thought-out civil structures which are useful to the cadets, the staff, and the parents on a daily basis.
“Can Do It” is our school motto and every Amaravian lives up to it. The school colours are steel grey and blood red. Steel grey stands for strength and blood red signifies extreme devotion to duty and comradeship. The swords in the school crest represent valour, the lamp stands for knowledge and wisdom and the temple tower symbolizes the culture and genius of Tamil Nadu. The school began with ICSE syllabus and in 1971 switched over to CBSE. The sixty four years of constant making has made Sainik School ,Amaravathinagar one of the best Public Schools in the country.


Sainik school, Amaravathinagar is an English medium, residential school for boys providing Public School Education with a military bias, located at Udumalpet, Tirupur Dist, Tamil Nadu. The school was formed with a clear objective of providing high-quality public school education and leadership & discipline training to handpicked children and groom them to become officers in the Defence Services of the country. The aim of the School is to enroll as many cadets as possible into the NDA (National Defence Academy)