News

Master plan for gifted children

3 billion baht sought to develop bright kids

By Sirikul Bunnag

Academics have proposed a plan for gifted children and sought a 3-billion-baht budget for projects to search for talented youngsters. The requests were made at a seminar about talented children, attended by 110 experts on July 18. Thongchai Chiewpreecha, director of Mahidol Witthayanusorn School, which teaches gifted children, said the government should draft a master plan and put clear policies in place to develop bright youngsters in various fields.

The Education Ministry was asked to present a proposal for a 3-billion-baht budget for running projects between 2004 and 2006 to find at least 15,000 talented students and set up 175 talented child development centres nationwide.

free university education?

Gifted children should be allowed to study with ordinary children at kindergarten and primary levels, and get at least one special classroom in each pro-vince at secondary level. Skills improvement programmes, advanced-tuition camps and special laboratories with expert teachers as counsellors were also needed at those levels. Mr Thongchai said gifted students should get 50,000-baht in subsidies a year. Another five secondary schools for gifted children were needed. Talented university students should get their education free. Sam-ang Hirunburana, an adviser to the National Education Council, said the government paid little attention to education for gifted children.

 A commission project to develop education programmes for students with Thai and English language talents was still going at only three of the seven participating schools. Apichart Intaravisit, a representative of the national centre for promoting music talents, said the state has supported gifted children in science rather than the cultural field.

Only the Culture Ministry was funding activities for youngsters with musical talents, on a limited budget. Deputy Prime Minister Chaturon Chaisaeng said the education system prevented talented children from using their ability.

Vocabulary

gifted (adj): having a lot of natural ability or intelligence
budget (n): the money that is available to a person or an organisation and a plan of how it will be spent
talented (adj): having a natural ability to do something well
draft (v): to write the first rough version of something such as a letter, speech, or book
field (n): in this use, a particular subject or activity that somebody works in or is interested in
laboratory (n): in this use, a special class
representative (n): a person who has been chosen to speak or vote for somebody else or on behalf of a group
limited (adj): not very great in amount or extent
prevent (v): to stop somebody from doing something; to stop something from happening