THRISSUR: For the first time in its history, Kerala Kalamandalam has introduced textbooks for various classical artforms in high school classes. Kathakali maestro Kalamandalam Gopi released the textbooks at a function on Thursday.
Since its establishment in 1930, Kalamandalamfollowed lessons as per the conviction of its teachers. With the introduction of textbooks, the teaching process, which focused on oral and performance-based interactions between teachers and students, will now become more systematic and standardised.
“Textbooks have been prepared for 15 subjects, including kathakali thekkan and vadakkan. The teachers of Kalamandalam worked hard to come up with a syllabus and standard textbooks under the guidance of State Council of Educational Research and Training.
The books will definitely act as a documental foundation for all courses helping students learn better,” said P Rajesh Kumar, Registrar of Kalamandalam.
A total of 42 books were released on Thursday.
‘With a syllabus, teaching will be more standardised’
“Since its inception, the teachers in Kalamandalam taught what they experienced on stage for years. Now with a syllabus, it will be more standardised. Some may be outstanding performers, but when it comes to teaching, we believe having a textbook as a document would help the teacher and student make the process much easier,” he said.
So far, when a person from outside asks about what the Kalamandalam teaches in a particular course, there is no physical document to show, especially when it comes to international students who attend short-term courses here.
“Kalamandalam initially made an attempt to come up with a syllabus for all art forms in 1998. However, they didn’t go ahead with the concept. For several years, we have been thinking about it and now it has become a reality,” said B Ananthakrishnan, Kalamandalam vice-chancellor.
He said the textbooks for Plus I and Plus II classes would be prepared in the coming years.