CHENNAI: The state-level Kalai Thiruvizha (arts and cultural festival) is scheduled to be conducted on January 3 and 4 in Coimbatore, Tirupur and Namakkal, announced the Department of School Education recently.

As per the notification from the TN State Mission of Education for All, the state-level events were earlier scheduled on December 5 and 6 after the National Achievement Survey (NAS) was held on December 4.

However, the department claimed that due to unprecedented weather conditions, the competitions have been postponed to January 3 and 4, in which 13,000 students will participate from across TN. For the category that has students from classes 1-5, events will be held in Coimbatore on January 4. And, on the same date for classes 6-8, final-level events will be held in Tirupur.

For government school students of classes 9 and 10, events will be held in Erode on January 3. For students of the same classes from aided schools, events will be held on January 4. For students of classes 11 and 12, events will be held in Namakkal – January 4 for aided school students and January 3 for government school students.

Speaking to DT Next, a teacher of an aided school said, “Ticket bookings and preparations are already in place to reach the venue on time. This will be the first time that all students of government, government-aided schools and special schools will be participating in the Kalai Thiruvizha festival.”

In the last year Kalai Thiruvizha held primarily for government school students, 1,000 students were given prizes.

At the state-level event last year, 16,000 students participated and 1,418 won prizes in different competitions.