Photographs of participants in festival attire, with their facial make-up on, sleeping near venues used to be a fixed feature in the media as events dragged on for hours on end at the State school arts festival.
The organisers, however, are determined to change the situation this time. On the first day of the festival on Tuesday, all the 60 events except two concluded by around 9 p.m. The remaining two ended by 11.20 p.m. On Wednesday, the curtain came down on almost all the 60 events by around 10.45 p.m.
P.K. Aravindan, programme committee convener, told The Hindu that on the inaugural day, all events began around 11 a.m. soon after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wound up his speech at the main venue. “The stage managers at each venue were given classes ahead of the festival on how to conduct the programmes in a time-bound manner. They coordinated well with team managers and assistant team managers from districts to bring participants to the venues in time. It did not take much time to bring judges as well,” he said. The participants are divided into clusters. “The managers were able to transport students in all the clusters without much delay,” Mr. Aravindan added.
During the inaugural ceremony itself, General Education Minister V. Sivankutty had said that steps would be taken to wind up the programmes in time. Every participant would be given three calls from the stage. If they did not turn up even after the third call, they would miss their chance, the Minister had said.
According to the organisers, one of the reasons for delay is reluctance on the part of certain participants chosen in the first clusters to go to the stage. There is a popular misconception that judges keenly watch and evaluate the performance only at the later stage of the competition. For dance competitions, some tend to think that their performance would be better, and that they look good in make-up and dress as the daylight falls. The authorities have been told to change this attitude of parents and teachers.
Another reason for the timely conduct of events could be the fall in the number of appeals against judgments at the district level filed by participants. Compared to around 600 appeals filed in the last edition of the festival in Kasaragod in 2020, this time there have been only around 300. Deputy Directors of Education have allowed only around 250 appeals, and another 30 came through the Lok Ayukta and 30-odd through munsif courts. The Kerala State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights too tried to curb the phenomenon.
