Arabic Sahityotsavam is a standalone chapter of the Kerala School Kalolsavam manual – not a side-track of the main festival but its own self-contained literary competition, open only to students formally studying Arabic as a recognised subject in a Public Education Department school. It runs through the same four-level cascade as the main kalolsavam – school, sub-district, revenue district, state – and follows the same manual’s general rules on grading, judge panels and certificates. What makes it a genuinely separate event is its catalogue: Arabic Sahityotsavam has its own item list, and the manual is explicit that the two festivals don’t share entries even when an item carries the same name.
One rule that trips up first-time organisers
A student who competes in Arabic Padyam Chollal (poem recitation) at Arabic Sahityotsavam is not eligible to also enter Arabic Padyam Chollal at the main School Kalolsavam – even though both events run an item with the identical name in the identical language. The manual treats them as two separate competitions requiring a choice, not one item with two entry points. The same per-student entry caps apply here as everywhere else in the manual: a maximum of three individual items and two group items per student.
Three categories, three very different item lists
Like the main kalolsavam, Arabic Sahityotsavam splits entrants by school stage – but the item count grows sharply at each stage, from 9 items at primary level to 19 at secondary:
| Category | Classes | Items | Sample items |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category I | I–IV (LP) | 9 | Handwriting, Word Formation (Class 1 only), Qur’an Recitation, Poem Recitation, Storytelling, Quiz, Arabic Song, Action Song, Group Song |
| Category II | V–VII (UP) | 13 | Prose Reading, Speech, Mono Act, Translation into Arabic, Word Relay, Conversation (2 members), Word Game, plus Category I’s recurring items |
| Category III | VIII–X (HS) | 19 | Essay, Story Writing, Caption Writing, Translation, Poster Making, Narrative Speech, Drama (7+3, 30 min), Dictionary/Glossary Making, plus gendered Poem Recitation and Arabic Song |
A handful of items recur across all three categories – Qur’an Recitation, Quiz and Arabic Song chief among them – but the step up from Category II to Category III adds a genuinely different kind of item: written composition and reference-skill tasks rather than just performance and recitation.
The items that don’t exist anywhere else on a kalolsavam stage
A few items are unique to this festival and worth knowing about if you’re setting up judging for the first time:
- Padanirmanam (Word Formation) – Class 1 only. Students are given a small set of Arabic root letters and build as many valid words as they can from them in 15 minutes.
- Vivarthanam (Translation into Arabic) – a passage in another language is translated into Arabic under time pressure (15 minutes at Category II, 30 minutes at Category III), scored on meaning accuracy, sentence construction, style and completeness rather than performance.
- Nighandu Nirmanam (Dictionary/Glossary Making) – a Category III item unique to this festival: students compile a short glossary of terms, judged on completeness of meaning, clarity, speed and the logical order the entries are arranged in.
- Musha’ara – the Arabic-language equivalent of Akshara Shlokam (the antakshari-style memorised-verse recitation found elsewhere in the manual): one student’s recitation hands off to the next based on the closing letter, judged on memory and recitation.
None of these have a direct equivalent in the main kalolsavam’s item list – they exist because Arabic Sahityotsavam is testing language fluency and literary skill specifically, not stagecraft.
Judging stays inside the same manual’s framework
Arabic Sahityotsavam uses its own 24-item judging-criteria table (the manual’s Chapter 17), but the shape is familiar to anyone who has judged the main kalolsavam: every item is marked out of 100 across four or five weighted criteria, with 60% the floor for any grade at all and the familiar A (80%+) / B (70–79%) / C (60–69%) band structure carrying through from the general rules. What changes is the vocabulary of what’s being judged – a Vivarthanam translation is scored on meaning-clarity, sentence construction, style and completeness, while a performance item like Arabi Gaanam (Arabic Song) is scored on the same voice/rhythm/knowledge/expression/language-purity axes used for the main kalolsavam’s own song items.
Setting this up on eTalenter
Arabic Sahityotsavam fits the same structure eTalenter already runs for the main kalolsavam and for Samskritotsavam – the Sanskrit-stream sibling we’ve written about before. Treat it as its own event or its own set of age groups and competition items rather than trying to merge it into the main kalolsavam’s item list, since the manual itself keeps the two separate even down to individual entries. Chest numbers, judge panels and results publishing all work the same way as any other eTalenter event – see our judging & tabulation guide for setting up weighted criteria per item.
You can see a multi-item, multi-category festival set up for yourself. Open a live demo and log in as a demo coordinator or judge – no sign-up required. For the parallel Sanskrit-stream festival, see our Samskritotsavam guide, and for the main festival’s own structure, our kalolsavam management software page.
FAQ
Who can take part in Arabic Sahityotsavam?
Only students formally studying Arabic as a subject in a recognised Public Education Department school – the same eligibility basis Samskritotsavam uses for Sanskrit.
Can a student enter the same item name in both Arabic Sahityotsavam and the main kalolsavam?
No, not where the item exists in both – Arabic Padyam Chollal in one festival makes a student ineligible for Arabic Padyam Chollal in the other. The manual treats them as separate competitions.
How many items does Arabic Sahityotsavam have?
9 at primary level (Category I), 13 at upper-primary (Category II), and 19 at secondary level (Category III) – a mix of recitation, performance, written-composition and reference-skill items.
മലയാളത്തിൽ വായിക്കുക (Read this in Malayalam)
Running an Arabic Sahityotsavam round on eTalenter? Message us on WhatsApp at +91 96056 56508 or email support@etalenter.com for help with the software. We can’t help with individual entries or submissions to the official festival – for those, please contact your school or your education office.
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