Tamil Nadu’s Kalaithiruvizha (கலைத் திருவிழா, “arts festival”) is the School Education Department’s annual arts-competition programme for government and government-aided schools, run separately from private-school events. Every year it issues a fresh set of joint proceedings covering classes 1 to 12 — rules, judging tables and an item list that grows sharply as pupils get older. If you’re organising or scoring a Kalaithiruvizha round at any level, here’s how the structure actually works and where software earns its keep.
Five class bands, not five age groups
Kalaithiruvizha is organised by school class, not by age — classes 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-10 and 11-12. Each band carries its own item list, and the list does not grow evenly: the youngest band (classes 1-2) runs just 6 items, classes 3-5 runs 12, classes 6-8 runs 14, and the two senior bands (9-10 and 11-12) each run a full 34 items — mostly instrumental music, dance styles and stage drama that only start once pupils are old enough to have trained in them. A coordinator setting this up has to build five genuinely different competition lists, not one list filtered by age.
Every item is open — boys and girls compete together, there is no separate gender category anywhere in the programme. A pupil may enter at most three individual items and two group items, a cap the platform’s per-candidate entry rules can enforce directly.
A separate track for pupils with disabilities (CWSN)
Alongside the five main bands, Kalaithiruvizha prints a parallel section for Children with Special Needs — pupils with intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder or cerebral palsy — one CWSN group per class band, judged from a short video (up to 5 minutes) that the school uploads rather than a live stage performance. It’s one of the few state-run school arts programmes that builds inclusion in as its own competition track rather than an afterthought, and it’s worth modelling as a genuinely separate group in your event setup, not a tag on the main one.
Placings, not points — and only the winner moves on
Three judges score every item independently, without conferring; their marks are averaged, and judges confer only to break an exact tie. Each art form has its own 100-mark rubric — most split into four or five criteria worth 20-25 marks each, while Speech runs six criteria (20, 20, 15, 15, 15, 15). The programme records the first three places at every level, but no bonus points are printed for a placing — a pattern Kalaithiruvizha shares with several other government-run school festivals, where the mark sheet and the placing table are kept deliberately separate.
Promotion is strict: only the first-placed pupil or team in each item advances from one level to the next — not the top three, not a percentage field. The competition cascades through school → cluster (classes 1-5 only) → block → district → state, with the state round for each class band typically held in a different district. A coordinator running the school round needs to know which single name goes forward in each of dozens of items, cleanly separated from the three names recorded for that school’s own records.
Setting it up in eTalenter
- Create five age/class groups (Cl 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-10, 11-12), plus a CWSN group per band if your school runs that track.
- Build the item catalogue per band — don’t reuse one master list, since the senior bands carry roughly five times as many items as the junior ones.
- Set each pupil’s entry limit to 3 individual + 2 group items so Bulk Participant Management blocks over-registration automatically.
- Score with a 3-judge panel per item and let the platform average the marks — the tie-break conference only triggers on an exact tie.
- Record the top 3 places for your own certificates, but track the single qualifier separately for promotion to the next level.
FAQ
Do Kalaithiruvizha winners get bonus points like a kalolsavam A/B/C grade?
No. The programme records first, second and third place at each level but prints no points for any of them — placing alone decides who moves up, with no running points table behind it.
Can private schools take part in Kalaithiruvizha?
No — it’s run for government and government-aided schools only, with the two groups competing separately within the same programme.
How many items does a senior pupil (classes 11-12) actually get to enter?
The band offers 34 items, but a single pupil may still enter at most three individual items and two group items — the large item list is for the school’s overall programme, not for any one participant.
Running a Kalaithiruvizha round, or a similar state-run school arts programme? See how eTalenter handles multi-level school arts festivals, or open a live demo and log in as a demo coordinator or judge — no sign-up needed. Questions welcome on WhatsApp at +91 96056 56508 or support@etalenter.com.
