The State School Arts Festival could see a major overhaul this year. The Quality Improvement Programme meeting, chaired by the Director of Public Instruction (DPI) in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday, recommended several changes to the conduct of the festival.
The recommendations include reducing the number of days and events and doing away with the cultural procession heralding the festival. It could now be tougher to get grades and there could be no more cash prizes for the first three winners in each event. The State festival is scheduled to be tentatively held from January 6 to 10 in Thrissur. Though there was a proposal earlier to conduct it during the Christmas vacation, it was decided that it would be better to keep the traditional festival dates of January.
“Though the festival will be held over five days, students will lose only three working days, as we will make use of Saturday and Sunday,” DPI K.V. Mohan Kumar told The Hindu on Tuesday. “The first stage of the festival, the school-level one, will be held from next month. By the middle of December, we will complete the district-level festivals.”
Single category
He said another significant recommendation was to have a single competition in certain events for boys and girls. “In folk dance, Ottan Thullal, mimicry, mono act, Kerala Nadanam, and Kathakali (single), separate competitions for boys and girls will be done away with,” he said.
“Another important recommendation is regarding grading. Now a contestant would have to score 80% in order to get ‘A’ grade, while it would be 70% for ‘B’ grade and 60% for ‘C’ grade.”
Cultural scholarship
He added that a cultural scholarship would be awarded to the ‘A’ grade winners, instead of the cash prizes for the contestants who come first, second, and third. “The government would decide the amount of the scholarship.”
About the recommendation to stop the cultural procession, he said that there would be a cultural meeting at the main venue. “It would have different cultural events, including dance,” he said. “We felt there was no need for the children to walk through the streets braving the sun.”
More events
He said more events were recommended to be added at the lower and upper primary levels. “The new events include action songs,” he said.
The recommendations would be forwarded to the government for the approval.
