KOCHI: After a long gap of 20 years, the commercial capital of Keralam is gearing up to host Asia’s largest arts festival for school students. As part of the run-up, the organising committee of the 65th State School Arts Festival will meet on Tuesday at the Ernakulam Town Hall.
The meeting, which will be inaugurated by General Education Minister N Shamsudheen, will see elected representatives, prominent citizens, heads of various departments, and representatives from teachers’ and students’ organisations interacting to ensure the smooth conduct of the grand arts festival.
According to an official with the district education department, Ernakulam has hosted the kalolsavam five times. “An interesting thing to note is that the first Kerala State School Youth Festival, or Kerala School Kalolsavam, was held in the district with SRV High School as the venue. That was in the year 1957. And the number of participants was 200,” she said.
The former name of the Kalolsavam was School Yuvajanolsavam.
“The person who introduced the concept of a school youth festival was Dr C S Venkiteswaran, who was the director of public instruction in Kerala in 1956,” the official said.
It is said that Venkiteswaran had an opportunity to participate in the inter-university festival at Delhi during that time, the official added. “That inspired him to organise a similar festival at the school level. It was inaugurated by the then minister for education, Joseph Mundassery. There were 200 participants. Lunch and tea were served. Participation was directly from the school level,” she said.
The Kalolsavam became a hit, and over the years, more items were included and the duration increased. After the first edition, the district hosted the 17th edition in 1977, the 23rd edition in 1983, 25th edition in 1985, the 37th edition in 1997, and the 46th edition in 2006.
The last edition -- held in Thrissur in January 2026 -- saw 14,000 students competing across 25 venues and around 249 events. The event was organised under the theme ‘Responsible Kalolsavam’.
Organisers framed the event around responsible consumption, food habits and responsible competition.
