So the State school arts festival is on.
Education Minister C. Ravindranath’s announcement on Tuesday -- that the festival would he held this year too, reversing the earlier decision not to in view of the recent floods – was welcomed by students and lovers of arts.
They had almost resigned to the possibility that there would be no festival this year. The Hindu, however, had reported on September 8 that the festival could very well be held, quoting highly placed sources.
As reported, a proposal was submitted before the Education Minister by the Directorate of Public Instruction (DPI) with suggestions to do away with the extravagance and bring down the costs considerably.
DPI K.V. Mohan Kumar and General Education Secretary A. Shajahan were able to convince the Chief Minister and the Education Minister about the need of the festival.
The issue of the grace marks given to the students based on their performances was always going to be difficult.
Though the government had already allocated the budget for the festival, the DPI was confident of using up only a part of it.
The festival is most likely to be held in December, as announced earlier. But, there could well be a change in the venue. The venues being considered are Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode.