Arts Education

The Arts Education programme at India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) is one of its flagship programmes. It announced itself in 1998-99, with the conviction that it is only through the arts that students and youngsters would inculcate a quest for lifelong learning. The programme was reviewed in 2008-09 and the recommendations from it led to the next avatar of the Arts Education programme that was titled Kali Kalisu (‘learn and teach’ in Kannada).

Kali Kalisu supports arts-based training for teachers from government schools in Karnataka and facilitates artists and teachers to develop arts projects within their school contexts using artistic and cultural practices from their own environments. It maintains a continuous dialogue with the Department of Public Instructions to intensify its teacher capacity building programme in Karnataka. The essence of Kali Kalisu has been to see arts education as an integral part of the development of students where they explore the joy of learning within and beyond their curriculum. It enables teachers to connect the lived experiences of their students to the syllabus in their textbooks through exploring local arts and cultural forms and practices. While building various skills and a cohesive intellectual and emotional development in children, it also hopes that the school becomes a place for learning and sharing for students, teachers, administration and the larger community.

Click here to read the programme note in Kannada.

In 2021, the programme was reviewed again by a panel of experts comprising KN Ganeshaiah, Nandini Manjrekar and Prema Rangachary. Additionally, Voices from the Field Reports (from Teachers and Administrators, and from Artists) were put together by researchers who spoke to teachers and administrators in the field to understand how the programme had impacted them. The recommendations that the panel of experts had helped us shape this roadmap for the programme for the next five years, from 2022-23 to 2026-27. 

Between 2022-23 and 2026-27 the programme will have three key areas of work: Capacity Building, Arts Projects in Schools and Outreach.

Capacity Building: To equip teachers with the skills and knowledge needed to enable integrated approaches to arts education.

  • Karnataka Teachers Trainings: Residential training courses to help teachers explore arts integrated approaches as well as address local and contextual needs of the teachers. 
  • Inter-State Teachers Training: Residential training courses that focus on bringing together teachers from two neighbouring districts—one from Karnataka and another from a border state—to learn and explore their overlapping cultures across practices of the various art forms as well as language and history.
  • Interstate Master Resource Persons Training: Training programmes with an advanced set of sessions for selected teachers from among those who attended the other courses to strengthen the professional competencies and  reflect critically on the perspectives of arts education 
  • Exposure Visit: Curated excursions for Project Coordinators to reinforce their proficiencies in arts through a field trip.

Arts Projects in Schools: To enable teachers, artists, and schools to take up arts integrated learning programmes and activities within classroom contexts.

  • Teachers Projects: Through an annual call for proposals, projects enabled by teachers of government schools across Karnataka will be chosen for implementation.
    The Request for Proposals is closed for the year 2024-25.
  • Artists Projects: Through an annual call for proposals, projects enabled by artists in government schools across Karnataka will be chosen for implementation.
    The Request for Proposals is closed for the year 2024-25.
  • National School Projects: Through an annual call for proposals, projects enabled by schools across the country will be chosen for implementation.
    The Request for Proposals is closed for the year 2024-25.

Outreach: To disseminate information about the programme, projects, and engage various stakeholders in the field. 

  • Conferences: An interdisciplinary podium for the experts from the field of pedagogy, teachers of art education, educators of museums and galleries, artists or representatives of cultural institutions to present the most recent developments in arts education. The papers and presentations will be made publicly accessible. 
  • Kalayatras: Travelling modules conducted across taluks in selected districts of Karnataka to disseminate information on the programme and to engage teachers and students with the learning pedagogies of arts education.
  • Hejjegalu: An annual publication in Kannada with stories of projects implemented by IFA under Kali Kalisu, put together by an editorial team consisting of the Project Coordinators.

For all queries about the programme, please email: krishna@indiaifa.org or radhika@indiaifa.org

Elements of the Arts Education programme in 2021-2024 were made possible with support from Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company.