THRISSUR: As the curtains came down on the 52nd edition of the Kerala State School Youth Festival here on Sunday, the 7-day cultural extravaganza drew mixed reactions from contestants, parents, judges and critics.Though the festival was almost as big a success as the organising committee claimed, the event, tipped as Asia’s biggest youth fete, witnessed certain unwarranted trends that do not augur well for the future. A deluge of appeals, allegations of judges showing favouritism and the financial clout of some schools coming into play to rig results; all these eventually marred the true spirit of the competition. Instances of judges and their family members mingling with some of the candidates and openly supporting them, have definitely taken some sheen off the festival. However, perhaps the worst trend of this edition was the unrelenting flow of appeals. The festival’s all-time record was broken with more than 1,000 appeals filed in the lower and the higher appeal committee, which eventually caused unexpected delays in events, with competitions often taking double the stipulated time to finish.Almost all competitions, especially the more glamorous dance items and other group items, had more than 14 participants. In some solo dance events, the total number of appeals rose to 35-40. There was considerable pressure on higher appeal committee members to allow appeals against the state-level results announced, a judge, on condition of anonymity, said. Vinod Puravankara, team manager of Durga HSS Kanhangad, Kasaragod, which won the overall championship with 227 points, said, “Some DDEs (Deputy Director of education) blatantly used this opportunity to make money while others acceded to political clout.” “This avalanche of appeals has also helped some districts to increase their overall points tally,” he added.The grading system also came under fire, with winners and critics alleging that the judges indiscriminately gave grades to almost all participants who contested. In some events, 70 per cent of contestants bagged grades.A higher-level meeting of the Education Department, held under the aegis of Public Education Director A Shajahan at Thrissur on Saturday evening, could not reach a consensus as some DDEs vehemently opposed the move against allowing appeals, calling it the right of contestants.But the negativity notwithstanding, the festival witnessed spirited competition in most events. Compared to the previous editions, the overall standard of the events has certainly improved, “The government should take initiatives to make art a mainstream profession, so that the young winners can pursue a career in the field,” said noted poet Kureeppuzha Sreekumar, one of the panelists in the poetry competition.
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