Education Minister V. Sivankutty believes there is still some room for improvement at the State School Arts Festival. “We will form a commission and get a report on the revisions needed in the rules and regulations of the school festival,” he told The Hindu here on Sunday. “We have no intention to reduce the size of the festival though, but some things, including ‘appeal entries’, have to be streamlined.”
He is glad that this year’s festival went off smoothly. This was the fourth State school festival since he took charge of the General Education Ministry. “We didn’t have protests, and it was once again an organisation marvel,” Mr. Sivankutty said.
“About 14,000 students took part in the festival and we were serving lunch for approximately 20,000 people every day. This festival is a resounding success because of the participation of students, teachers, government officials as well as people’s representatives.”
The Minister feels the school festival is a pride of Kerala. “Ministers from other States have told me on several occasions that they too conduct arts festival like ours,” he said. “They have been asking me how we were doing this every year. In fact, some of the Ministers were planning to watch the festival here.”
The Minister said the government had plans to start institutions to train school students in art. “Something like our sports schools,” he said. “We will see how it can be done and how many such centres are feasible. I believe students who participate at the festival with such interest deserve to have schools to learn art seriously.”
Mr. Sivankutty said he was glad that he could make it possible for an ailing Siya Fathima to participate as an online contestant. “When I received her letter, I realised that her request merited consideration,” he said. “Her medical history was checked and I gave a special order allowing her to compete online, which had never happened before. And she won an ‘A’ Grade, too.”
Published – January 18, 2026 10:11 pm IST
