Arts Education | 1998-2022

Early Years of Arts Education at IFA (1998-1999 – 2008-2009)

One of its flagship programmes at IFA, the Arts Education programme was announced in 1998 with the conviction that only through the arts do students and youngsters inculcate a quest for lifelong learning.

The programme’s first ten years (between 1999 and 2008) were shaped around sparking off a wide range of interventions through strategic grants made to institutions (both governmental and non-governmental), and individuals working in the field. A programme review was done at the end of its first ten years in 2008, driven by a sense of urgency that an ‘evolutionary’ approach had led the programme down an adventurous but somewhat disorienting path with only a few consolidated outcomes and impacts. The recommendations from this review brought about the next avatar of the Arts Education programme titled Kali Kalisu (learn and teach, in Kannada). It was decided that since arts education required a deeper focus, our attention would be concentrated on the state of Karnataka where IFA is based.

Kali Kalisu I (2009-2010 – 2013-2014)

The essence of Kali Kalisu has been to see arts education as an integral part of the development of students. It enables teachers to connect the lived experiences of their students to the syllabus in their text books by exploring local arts and cultural forms and practices.

In the first phase of Kali Kalisu I, many initiatives were put in place that displayed a strategy that organically shifts from engaging a large constituency of teachers to nurturing a small but highly motivated set of individuals. In the second phase, the focus shifted to conducting more intensive training for a select set of teachers in a fifteen-day residency. The third phase was shaped around a series of regional conferences where teachers from across the seven districts gained exposure to a variety of discourses and practices in arts education, along with sharing of best practices from some of the teachers. The fourth phase saw a shift, where individual projects and model school grants were given out to a handful of Kali Kalisu teachers, who implemented a series of arts-based training for peers and students in their schools and districts, using local artist facilitators and involving the surrounding communities.

Conferences were a key part of Kali Kalisu I. Contexts, Concepts and Practices in Schools held in 2009, brought together ideas from the world of Arts Education and the multiplicity of practices that define the field on the ground. Arts, Education and Development held in 2010 catalysed conversations with broader activist communities that engaged in the continual dialogue of global and local realities, ideas, theories and practices. 2011 saw two conferences in Bidar and Dharwad districts conducted for teachers from government schools in the regions. Diversity and Justice held in 2012 examined a range of topics, from those of equity of access to arts education for the underprivileged, to ways in which arts education can shape the cultural imaginary of a just and equitable society within and outside the space of the classroom. These conferences engaged more than 500 teachers and artists working in the area of arts education from rural and small-town Karnataka.

In 2013 the programme was reviewed and the recommendations from that review shaped Kali Kalisu II (2014-2015 – 2021-2022).

Kali Kalisu II (2014-2015 – 2021-2022)

Kali Kalisu II continued to conduct trainings for teachers, support projects in schools led by teachers and artists and do extensive outreach across Karnataka. Teachers were also taken on arts exposure trips to enhance their own learning. In addition, a part of the programme opened out nationally which enabled schools to engage in integrated arts projects. Moreover, as the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 highlighted the need for arts education, it gained traction among schools. 

In March 2021, IFA organised a two-day webinar titled Interwoven Tapestries: Lessons from Arts Education, to understand the scope of the programme and what other practitioners in the field are thinking and doing. It was conducted in the hope that the conversations and questions raised at the sessions will feed into the review process and enrich our knowledge about the existing arts integrated work in education across the country.

In December 2021, KN Ganeshaiah, Nandini Manjrekar and Prema Rangachary were invited as external expert panelists to evaluate the programme. Additionally Voices from the Field Reports were put together by researchers who spoke to the field to understand the programme’s impact. Virtual conversations were organised for the expert panel with teachers and artist grantees of IFA. The recommendations from the review gave birth to Kali Kalisu, the Arts Education programme at IFA for the next five years, from 2022-2023 to 2026-2027, which includes training, advocacy, outreach, grant making and implementation of projects.