The Khelo India Rising Talent Identification (KIRTI) program starts at National Centre of Excellence (NCOE) Guwahati on 27th March with the participation of approximately 200 school students from multiple schools across Guwahati. KIRTI is India’s first ever sports talent identification programme for school children in line with the ‘Sports-Integrated Education’ vision of New Education Policy- 2020.
KIRTI has been envisioned to achieve the goal of tapping the untapped latent sporting talent at grassroot level and developing a sporting consciousness in the public. The talent identification is done through a scientifically designed and National Sports Federation approved battery of tests. The participant students have undergone a battery of 10 tests curated to measure their physical attributes followed by sports-specific tests. The on-going talent assessment at NCOE Guwahati covers five disciplines, namely Boxing, Kho Kho, Archery, Athletics, and Football.
Further, the entire program is designed using IT Tools – the KIRTI App such that it will help in streamlining the whole process of grassroot talent identification on a single platform. Following the assessment, students will get digital report card of their performance showcasing their percentile- based ranking at state and national level. Going forward, KIRTI aims to create a large pool of feeder athletes who will represent India in international Sporting events and be put on the ‘path to fame’ i.e. KIRTI.
Day one of the five-day long program was dedicated to talent identification in Boxing discipline. Approximately 1000 students are expected to be covered in the first phase of the program. On 30th March Athletics assessment and on 31st March Football assessment will be conducted at NCOE Guwahati. SAI Regional Centre Guwahati encourages students in the age group of between 9 years and 18 years, parents, and school administration to become part of KIRTI assessment.