Thiruvananthapuram: Following the opposition from the teacher’s organisations, directorate of public instructions (DPI) has dropped the plan to hold School Youth Festival during Christmas holidays. Instead, it will be held from January 6 to 10 in Thrissur. Earlier, the decision was to conduct the youth festival from December 27 to January 1 following the finding that the state was not getting the required number of instructional hours. If the curriculum has to be adequately covered, the state required 1000 instructional hours. Moreover, there was a stipulation that there should be at least 200 working days as per the Right to Education Act.
As a large number of teachers and students will be part of the youth festival, classes would be disrupted during the period. However, the number of venues should increase to confine the fest to a five-day affair. There was also a decision to do away with the extravagant cultural procession and conduct a cultural meeting instead.
It has been proposed not to hold separate competitions for boys and girls in items like mimicry, mono act, Kathakali, folk dance, Kerala Natanam and Ottamthullal. The department has also decided to bring restrictions on appeals, restricting the number of candidates to a maximum of 14 for an item, controlling expenses and giving importance to writing competitions.
