Government gearing up for Sishu Mahotsav

BHUBANESWAR: The State Government is gearing up for Sishu Mahotsav, the annual children’s festival, being organised by the Department of School and Mass Education and State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) across the State. The festival concludes coinciding with the  Children’s Day celebrations on November 14. “This year, the Government has decided to rename it as Surabhi-2011,” said SCERT Director Sevak Tripathy. The festival has been designed as a three-tier competitive event to spot talents at the grassroots level. In the primary round, the block-level festival would be held on October 22 at all the 314 blocks of the State followed by the district-level festival on November 4 in the secondary round. The final round of competition and festival would be staged in the capital city from November 12 to 14 at the Unit 9 Boys’ High School. Tripathy said the children with special needs shall be eligible to participate in the competitive festival in two groups. While students from standard 4 to 7 shall constitute the junior group, the senior group shall feature students from standard 8 to 10. He said this year there would be quiz, debate, singing, creative writing besides mono acting, fancy dress and group dance contests. The State-level festival shall further feature mock  parliament, children’s film festival and visit to heritage sites.  “A new addition this year will be ‘Meet the Artiste’ where the students will get to meet and interact with artistes of national and international repute. Various stalls will also be put up at the venue,” Tripathy said. The stalls will have a range of colourful models on display to apprise visitors of teaching and learning methods, resource materials, multilingual education, computer-aided learning, management information system, school-support scheme, infrastructure facilities and energy conservation.  School and Mass Education Minister Pratap Jena recently reviewed the festival design, sources said. More than 1,000 student delegates from 30 revenue districts would participate.