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School for gifted pupils not in the near future
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Fri, Jul 18, 2008
The New Straits Times
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>KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: A school for gifted children cannot be established any time soon. Education director-general Datuk Alimuddin Mohd Dom said the proposal to have a special school for children with special talents including child geniuses needs a lot of study.
The proposal was made by the deputy prime minister's wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, on Tuesday, after visiting Thailand's first specialised science school designed to provide education for the exceptionally talented students in Science and Mathematics.
Rosmah said many Malaysian parents were sending their children to similar schools overseas or resorted to home-schooling because no such schools exist here.
Alimuddin said the ministry welcomed the idea as it provided an avenue for child geniuses and those with special abilities to develop their special skills and contribute to the country's well-being in the long run.
"It can be done but there are factors that need to to studied first," said Alimuddin.
He said the ministry needed to get experts to manage the school and the children.
"The gifted children are in a different league and the school itself must be designed to accommodate them.
"Then, we need to look for facilitators who speak their language."
Alimuddin said the biggest challenge would be to identify the children.
"We need specialised tests or engage the Mensa Society to identify them."
He said that gifted children would normally be tested on three subjects --- language, mathematics and music.
On whether the country has a high number of gifted children, Alimuddin said most studies concluded that to every 1,000 children, at least 100 are exceptionally gifted.
He added that there was a committee in the ministry that discusses special education issues, including education for the gifted.
A social psychologist Prof Dr Chiam Heng Keng estimated that Malaysia had some 300,000 intellectually gifted primary schoolchildren, although there were far fewer child geniuses.
Chiam's definition for genius was an IQ of at least 180 points while those with an IQ of 130 points or more were classified as intellectually gifted. --NST
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