Lakshadweep’s Union Territory Level School Kalolsavam is run by the Department of Education and the District Panchayat for students of the government schools across the islands. It is the UT’s own version of the mainland kalolsavam — judges score every item, grades and placing points decide winners, and results roll up from the school to the UT level. If you coordinate this festival, or a school-level round that feeds into it, here is how the structure actually works and how eTalenter maps onto it.
A festival built on school class, not age
Unlike a typical LP/UP/HS/HSS kalolsavam, Lakshadweep’s manual defines three categories strictly by the class a student is studying in, not their age on a cut-off date:
- Category I — Classes 6, 7 and 8
- Category II — Classes 9 and 10
- Category III — Classes 11 and 12
Each category runs its own individual-item group and a separate group-item group — six groups in total — plus one shared Kala Jatha (a procession/performance item open to every class, 6 through 12, with no age-group ID prefix of its own). Setting the festival up on eTalenter means building these six class-based groups plus the common Kala Jatha group, not the usual four age bands.
The competition list grows with the category
As recorded in the 5th UT Level School Kalolsavam manual (2015, Kavaratti), the catalogue widens the further up a student goes:
| Category | Classes | Individual items | Group items |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category I | 6–8 | 9 | 4 |
| Category II | 9–10 | 14 | 9 |
| Category III | 11–12 | 18 | 8 |
| All categories | 6–12 | 1 Kala Jatha (common) | |
On-stage items include Recitation, Elocution, Mappilapattu, Mono Act, Mimicry, Folk Dance, Light Music, Kolkali, Oppana, Patriotic Song and Dance, Mime, Duffmuttu, Parichamuttu, Dolippattu, Group Dance, Bandiya Dance and Vattappattu. Off-stage items include Essay Writing, Pencil Drawing, Crayon and Water-Medium Painting, Poem Writing and Story Writing. Recitation, Elocution, Essay Writing and Poem/Story Writing each run in multiple languages — Malayalam, English, Hindi and, for some items, Arabic — so the same item title appears several times in the schedule, once per language.
Placing points and grade points work side by side
Two separate point systems feed the overall championship, and a coordinator needs both configured correctly:
- Placing points — individual items: 1st 5, 2nd 3, 3rd 1. Group items: 1st 10, 2nd 6, 3rd 2. Kala Jatha: 1st 10, 2nd 6, 3rd 4, with 2 extra points for every other participating island.
- Grade points — applied per item, on top of placing: a score of 70% or more earns an A grade worth 5 points, 60–69% a B grade worth 3 points, 50–59% a C grade worth 1 point. Anything below 50% gets no grade at all. Grade points are only printed for the six class-based groups — the manual scores Kala Jatha on placing points alone, with no grade points attached to it.
That combination — a grade band on top of a placing — is the same shape as the Kerala mainland kalolsavam’s A/B/C system, so a coordinator who has run a mainland-style event will recognise the mechanics immediately, even though the percentage thresholds and class-based grouping are specific to this manual.
Judging criteria are printed per art form
The manual’s own “Evaluation indicators” annexure gives a 100-mark judging sheet for each art form — the same criteria apply across every language and every class in which that item runs. 24 of the 25 competition items carry a printed criteria sheet; the one exception (crayon painting of a scenery) has no indicators printed in the manual, so it is scored on marks alone. Loading these as per-item judging criteria in eTalenter means every panel scores against the same printed sheet instead of improvising a rubric on the day.
What the manual leaves to the organising committee
A few rules sit outside what a scoring platform configures and stay with the organising committee: fixed team sizes for group items (Kolkali 12 members + 1 extra, Oppana 9 + 3, Dolippattu 8, Duff Muttu 10, Bandiya Dance 10, Patriotic Song 5 or 6), a cap of four individual items per student, the rule that only the first-placed team at school level is promoted to advance to the UT level, a ₹500 fee to file an appeal, and named titles (such as Kalaprathibha and Kalathilakam) the manual reserves for its own top performers. None of these are platform settings — they are decisions the committee prints in its own circular, and the coordinator enforces them manually alongside whatever eTalenter tracks.
A note on edition: the structure above comes from the 5th UT Level School Kalolsavam manual (2015). A coordinator running a later edition of this festival should check the current circular from the Lakshadweep Directorate of Education before copying these numbers, since items, time limits and point values can change between editions.
Why run it on eTalenter instead of a spreadsheet
A festival this size — six class-based groups, a shared Kala Jatha, four languages for several items, two parallel point systems and 24 printed judging sheets — is exactly the kind of event that outgrows a shared spreadsheet fast. eTalenter lets a coordinator build the class-based groups once, assign every item with its own language, gender rule and time limit, load each art form’s judging sheet for the panel, and let placing points and grade points calculate automatically as results come in — all the way through to chest numbers, certificates and a published results list the whole island can check online. The same flexible Event Levels and age/class-group setup that handles a mainland kalolsavam adapts to this UT-level structure without any custom code.
Frequently asked questions
Is the UT Level School Kalolsavam open to all schools in Lakshadweep?
It is organised for students of the government schools under the Lakshadweep Administration, run by the Department of Education and District Panchayat.
Are categories based on age or on class?
On class. Category I covers Classes 6–8, Category II covers Classes 9–10, and Category III covers Classes 11–12 — there is no separate age cut-off date to track.
Does every item carry both placing points and grade points?
Every item in the six class-based groups does. The common Kala Jatha item is scored on placing points only, with no grade points attached to it.
Can eTalenter handle an item that runs in four different languages?
Yes — each language version of an item (for example Recitation in Malayalam, English, Hindi and Arabic) is set up as its own entry within the same competition item, with its own time limit and judging sheet, so results and points for each language stay separate.
Running your school’s UT Level School Kalolsavam round on eTalenter? Message us on WhatsApp 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 the festival’s organisers.
Want to see this in action before setting it up? Open a live kalolsavam demo and log in as a demo coordinator or judge — no sign-up, read-only, nothing you click can change the event. You can also explore the kalolsavam management software overview or read how a district-level kalolsavam cascades across levels for the mainland comparison.
