Secondary and primary school students across the island will gather at the Arawak House of Culture on Tuesday 12th March to kick off the 2013 National School Arts Festival.
Students will be given an opportunity to display their talents in choral music, vocal solos, choral speech, instrumental music, drama, creative dance, and art and craft.
Chief Cultural Officer, Raymond Lawrence, said the festival, which has been going on for about 15 years, is part of giving students a holistic education.
“The talents and skills of young people need to be developed in the areas of art and culture. We need to make them realise that there are various career opportunities in art and culture,” he said on Thursday.
Lawrence emphasized the need for Dominicans to embrace their culture and their history.
Meanwhile Senior Cultural Officer, Pearl Christian, said that schools who participate in all categories of the festival every year will be awarded a plaque of commendation.
She described the festival an “assessed display” rather than a competition.
“We have a medal system where every presentation is scored over 100 points. Therefore if you gain 85-100 points you gain a gold medal, 75-84 a silver medal, 65-74 a bronze medal and a certificate for 0-64 points. In that way it takes off the edge of the stress of competition,” she said.
Primary school students are only eligible to participate in 4 categories of the festival which are instrumental music, musical ensemble, drama and creative dance.
The festival is expected to end Friday 15th March, 2013.
An art and craft exhibition will be held throughout the week.
It’s all part of learning. No notes for one day can’t do much harm. It’s a damn good initiative. Children who are not strong in certain subject areas might just be good in art n dance.
The idea is a good one but I think it should be held in the afternoon. The children are away from school on that day and sometimes they don’t even get all the notes or lesson missed on that day. One other thing they take so long to start the programme and then those long long speeches,
Those speeches should be outlawed -total waste of time
i agree! i am a student i hv to beg my teacher to go and see my fellow classmates and frens bcuz it in school hours!