More than 1500 school students from 32 districts in Tamil Nadu showcased their artistic talents at the State-level talent competitions for school students organised by the School Education Department here on Thursday and Friday.
The competitions in various events comprising oratory (Tamil and English), essay-writing (Tamil and English), mono acting, vocal music, painting, poetry (Tamil), quiz, instrumental music, Bharatanatyam and folk dance were conducted for three groups — standards 6-8, standards 9 and 10, and standards 11 and 12 — at different venues in Vellore.
The first-prize-winning students and teams staged their performances at the valedictory function of the competitions held at the Sunbeam Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Mettukulam near here on Friday.
Distributing prizes to the winners, K.C. Veeramani, School Education Minister, said that the government had introduced several schemes for distribution of free education aids such as bicycles, laptops, geometry boxes and textbooks to the poor school students during the tenure of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister. The government had allotted Rs. 19,800 crore to the education department during the current financial year. The students of government schools too were getting State first ranks in the 10th and 12th standard public examinations in recent years thanks to the importance the government gave to school education, he said.
S. Kannappan, Director of School Education, said that the government was conducting State Level Talent Competitions in order to bring out the budding artistic talents among the school students and enable them to develop them so that they can shine in various forms of art, and not just in academics. He said that the government has appointed 15,500 graduate teachers and 2500 post graduate assistants, while classroom buildings worth Rs. 460 crore were constructed under the schemes of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).
The Minister was taking steps to ensure that no school goes without a toilet in 2015-16. Free text books for the third term have been sent this month for distribution to all school students, he said.
R. Nanthagopal, Collector of Vellore, appealed to the teachers to minimise the use of cell phones within the school in order to set a good example to the students since cell phones diverted their attention from studies. A. Mohammed Jhan, Ranipet MLA and M. Kalaiarasu, Anaicut MLA spoke. V. Kumar, Chief Education Officer, Vellore, welcomed the gathering.
