Wasted potential of India's gifted children
Within a disabling and discouraging socio-economic environment, the overwhelming majority of India’s gifted children disappear into mediocre school and higher education systems which are ill-equipped to nurture exceptional talent or potential. Summiya Yasmeen reports
From age ten, he displayed amazing technology absorption capacity. At age 15, he became India’s youngest engineering graduate. Today at 16, Chennai-based Chandra Sekar Subramanian is the youngest ever M.Tech student at IIT-Madras and has won a Rs.7 lakh scholarship from the Mumbai-based IT major Tata Consultancy Services.
Tathagat Avtar Tulsi wrote his class X CBSE exam when he was ten. At the age of 11 years and two months, he became India’s youngest science graduate (B.Sc) and at 11 years and 10 months, the youngest Master’s degree holder in physics. At 13, he cleared the UGC’s National Eligibility Test to qualify for a junior research fellowship. Currently Tathagat (18) is the youngest Ph D scholar at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
Four-year-old Budhia Singh is the world’s youngest marathon runner. Lionised by the media as an athletic phenomenon, Singh has participated in (and completed) runs of up to 60 km with impressive timings. Born into an impoverished family in Bhubaneshwar, this ‘marathon tot’ is listed in the Limca Book of Records for completing a record breaking 65 km run from Jagannath temple, Puri, to Bhubaneshwar.
Akrit Jaiswal (13), residing in a remote village of Himachal Pradesh, was one of the ‘world’s amazing kids’ interviewed by US-based chat show queen Oprah Winfrey on television in early February. Akrit rose to fame at age seven when he performed a surgical operation on an eight-year-old girl whose fingers had fused together after being burnt. He became India’s youngest university student and is currently a science undergrad at Chandigarh University. He has an IQ of 146 — the highest recorded for any one his age in India.
These are just a few among thousands — perhaps millions — of child prodigies who by accident rather than design have made the national headlines to fame and glory. Within a disabling and discouraging socio-economic environ-ment, the overwhelming majority of India’s gifted children disappear into mediocre school and higher education systems which are ill-equipped to nurture exceptional talent or potential. It’s highly unlikely that ten or 20 years from now, Tulsi, Chandra Sekar, Budhia or Akrit — will hit the headlines again as Nobel laureates, inventors of path-breaking techno-logies, or olympic medalists. Ballpark estimates put the number of gifted children at 3 percent or 13 million of India’s child population of 450 million (below 15 years of age). According to the Javits Act (1988), USA, "the term gifted and talented student means children and youth who give evidence of higher performance capability in such areas as intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who require services or activities not ordinarily provided by the schools in order to develop such capabilities fully." Unfortunately neither governments nor educationists have developed formal programmes or a policy plan for nurturing India’s gifted children. Even in the private school sector, the few programmes devised to nurture gifted pupils are half-baked copycat versions of Western models.
"Regrettably India does not have any initiatives, resources or a strategic national plan to develop its gifted and talented children, though there is plenty of rhetoric by educationists and policy makers on its importance. Government schools which in most cases lack basic infrastructure are completely unaware of ways and means to identify and nurture high potential learners. Even in the best private schools, teachers are ill-equipped to identify and mentor children displaying exceptional talent. Three attributes — above average ability, creativity and task commitment — have to be synergised to cultivate talent. India is also one of the few countries worldwide which doesn’t have a national association for gifted children, which could offer parents and educators advice and support. There’s a wealth of intellectual capital locked within India’s undiscovered child prodigies," says M. Srinivasan, a postgraduate of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, University of Connecticut (USA) who returned to India in 1995 to establish the Gear Foundation for gifted education and research. Simultaneously Srinivasan also promoted the Gear Innovative International School — the Multiple Intelligences and Talents Development Gurukul — in Bangalore, a CBSE affiliated kindergarten-class X school with an aggregate enrollment of 650 students.
Centrally planned India’s policy blindspot which has compelled it to continuously neglect the development of its abundant human capital — children included — is a striking contrast to official policy in the US and Western countries which allocate 6-7 percent of their GDP (cf. India’s 3.5 percent) for education. Moreover they ensure that gifted children receive acceleration and enrichment programmes in their classrooms.
In 2006, the US Congress allocated $9.6 million (Rs.47 crore) under the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act to the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented which identifies and serves bright children who are traditionally under-represented in gifted and talented programmes. The Jacob K. Javits funded National Research Center is a collaborative effort of Connecticut, Yale and Virginia universities, 52 state and territorial departments of education, 368 public and private schools and 167 content area consultants promoted as far back as 1968 to research methodologies to identify, nurture and develop gifted students across America.According to data researched and compiled by the National Association of Gifted Children (NAGC — estb.1953), a national level apex body comprising parents, educators, teachers and other professionals with chapters in 47 constituent states of the US, there are 3 million gifted children in America. NAGC invests all its resources to train teachers, encourage parents and educate administrators and policymakers on how to develop and support gifted children.
Across the Atlantic in Europe too, there is heightened awareness about the importance of providing special education to gifted children. In 2002, the British government’s department for education and skills established the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth (NAGTY) to encourage and nurture high-potential children by developing leaders and support professionals to work in this field. Likewise in France and Germany the federal governments have full-fledged scholarship and educational progr-ammes to support high-potential learners in mainstream schools. In China, India’s béte noire, government policy mandates identification and special training of gifted children in schools and universities (China’s Olympic training academies are excellent examples). Moreover the Chinese government has made a nationwide provision of ‘children’s palaces’, offering after-school supplementary training in the arts, music, or academic subjects.
In India, perhaps the only initiative which could partially qualify as an exercise in gifted education is promotion of the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) schools in the late 1980s by the Central government. Envisaged by the National Policy on Education (1986), the objective of the JNVs is "to identify and develop talented, bright and gifted children predominantly from rural areas who may otherwise be denied good educational opportunities". From two schools in 1986 the number of JNVs has now grown to 557, spread across 28 states and four Union territories with an aggregate enrollment of 158,000 students. The JNVs are fully residential, co-educational schools providing free education to the brightest and best rural students from classes VI to XII.
Admission into JNVs which are affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), in class VI is through an entrance test conducted at the district level by CBSE. About 32,000 students from rural India who clear the entrance test, which assesses students’ general knowledge and academic capabilities, are admitted every year. Once admitted, these children study the regular mainstream CBSE curriculum with no provision for identification and training of high- potential learners among them.
Similarly even in India’s much hyped private schools sector, there is little evidence of formal programmes for the exceptionally bright. Although some of the country’s top-rung schools parade the extraordinary achievements of their students in examinations and co-curricular activities with great pride, policies if any, for nurturing talent are piecemeal, fragmented and informal. For instance in the CBSE affiliated Padma Seshadri Bal Bhavan Senior Secondary School, Chennai, reputed for large numbers of academic achievers it churns out every year, there are no special learning programmes or advanced courses for gifted students.
"We don’t offer special education programmes or mentoring to gifted children, but give them ample scope and space to hone their talents. We encourage them to participate in inter-school, national and international competitions, olympiads, talent exams, and music and dance events. Our curriculum is designed to develop the talent of all children. We provide wide exposure to students through guest lectures and academic workshops," says Valli Arunachalam, an alumnus of Madras and Annamalai universities and incumbent principal of PSSB.
Like Arunachalam, principals of India’s most reputed schools interviewed by EducationWorld correspondents countrywide, passed off supplementary education as the substitute of special enrichment programmes. Most aren’t even aware that acceleration/enrichment progra-mmes for gifted students is a top priority in schools worldwide, particularly in the US, UK and Australia (see box p.62). Therefore it took considerable research and leg work for EW correspondents to zero in on schools which offer formal learning programmes to their best and brightest.
In Pune, the Jnana Prabodhini School (estb. 1962) claims to be the first and perhaps only secondary school exclusively for intellectually gifted children in India. Affiliated to the CBSE board, the school admits "bright and intelligent" students in class V through a rigorous entrance examination which includes a battery of seven psychological tests. Those who fare well in the written exam are invited for a series of group interviews with the school’s teachers. Of the 1,000 students who write the entrance test annually, only 80 including 40 girl children are admitted.
"Within the constraints of the CBSE curriculum, we have pioneered enrichment programmes which stimulate gifted students to achieve their potential. Based upon American psychologist Dr. J.P. Guilford’s intelligences model, our teaching-learning is stimulating, interactive and flexible. For instance instead of using the traditional lecture model in classrooms, we make a conscious effort to arouse the curiousity, sensitivity, observation, critical and divergent thinking and creativity skills of our students. Providing gifted students vibrant and enabling learning environments is crucial to the economic development and prosperity of India," says Vivek Ponkshe, principal of Jnana Prabodhini which has an enrollment of 470 students guided by 20 teachers.
Identifying gifted children According to Joseph Renzulli,director and guru of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut, USA, "gifted behaviour occurs when there is interaction among three basic clusters of human traits: above-average general and/or specific abilities; high levels of task commitment (motivation), and high levels of creativity. Gifted and talented children are those who possess or are capable of developing this composite of traits and applying them to any potentially valuable area of human performance."Educators suggest several methodologies for identifying gifted children. One of the most popular methodologies is by way of administering intelligence quotient (IQ) tests. Generally children with 140 plus IQ (out of a maximum possible 200) are classified as gifted and talented. Among the IQ tests commonly used are the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), the Stanford Binet, Terman Merrill and Raven’s Progressive Matrices with the Manchester University British Ability Scales. Other ways to identify gifted children include teacher observation checklists, parental assessment, peer-group nomination, students’ work, national curriculum tests and co-curricular activities. The National Association for Gifted Children, UK lists some common characteristics of gifted children which parents and teachers must watch for. Gifted children tend to: • possess a wide vocabulary and begin speaking early
• ask questions and learn quickly
• exhibit retentive memory
• be curious and can concentrate for long periods
• display wide general knowledge and interests
• enjoy problem-solving, often missing out intermediate stages in argument and making original connections
• posses vivid imagination
• read from early age
• express strong feelings and opinions
• set high standards bordering on perfectionism
• be disinterested in repetitive tasks
• be imaginative and creative thinkers
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Unlike Jnana Prabodhini, which admits only gifted children through rigorous entrance testing, the Gear Innovative International School, Bangalore promoted by M. Srinivasan (quoted earlier) admits children of varying learning potential with special focus on providing environments which stimulate high potential students. The school’s pedagogic philosophy is based on the globally renowned American educationist Howard Gardener’s multiple intelligences theory and the research output of Joseph Renzulli, director and guru of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of Connecticut, USA. "We have devised a special hands-on curriculum for children in classes I-VIII which stimulates creativity according to aptitude. This is done in specialist academies for nurturing the seven intelligences — as defined by Gardener — which gifted children can self-select according to their special talent. For instance there is the Anand Chess Academy, Ramanujam Math & Logical Academy, the Ravi Verma Visual Academy, etc. These academies have highly trained teachers/ mentors who help students develop their talent," says Srinivasan.
Education of gifted children also receives focused attention at Delhi’s Col. Satsangi’s Kiran Memorial School (CSKMS). Its Gifted Children Centre was promoted in 1998 to conduct research on giftedness and spread awareness about the need to identify and nurture gifted children countrywide. The centre conducts annual workshops to educate teachers and principals on ways and means to develop enrichment and accelerated learning programmes for high performers.
However Dr. Shakuntala S. Jaiman, principal of CSKMS and director of the school’s Gifted Children Centre believes that exceptional children are best served through special enrichment programmes within regular classrooms rather than in separate environments. "It’s been proved that mainstreaming gifted children is the best methodology to nurture them. In CSKMS we practise partial segregation of gifted children i.e they are grouped with children of similar abilities only for some activities. But mostly, they are in mixed classrooms. Interaction with children of varying learning abilities and backgrounds heightens awareness that they must utilise their special talent for the greater good of society and provides them leadership opportunities," explains Jaiman.
However Jnana Prabodhini, Gear School and CSKMS are rare and exceptional institutions. The great majority of India’s 1.1 million primaries and secondaries offer standardised one-size-fits-all pedagogies in their classrooms, neglecting the special needs of gifted children. Usually teachers cater to the middle cohort and overlook those with above and less than average ability. Lack of classroom stimulation, unchallenging curriculums and peer pressure to conform, often atrophies the learning skills of gifted students. According to the Davidson Institute for Talent Development, Nevada (USA) an estimated 15-40 percent of gifted students are at risk of under-achievement.
Comments Lionel Cranenburgh, the India-born Perth-based activist of the Western Australian Gifted and Talented Children’s Association and chief executive of Shanon Quest, an education services company: "Gifted children are most at risk in schools where teachers overlook their special educational needs. Research indicates that as many as 40 percent of gifted children under-achieve in Australia, because they are unchallenged in their classrooms. Such children need affirmation and positive discrimination in their favour. Fear of elitism should not prevent their development." According to Cranenburgh, some of the policies adopted by Australian schools to nurture the most able students include customised enrichment progra-mmes, the option to accelerate or skip grades and specially trained teachers to manage them. "Unfortunately in India, advanced programmes are non-existent, and double promotions are actively discouraged by schools. Regrettably most school teachers — government and private — don’t have a clue about how to pick and groom talent," says Cranenburgh who visits schools in India annually to spread the message of special education for gifted children.
Mumbai-based educator Gool Ghadiali, former principal of Mumbai’s high profile New Era and Maneckji Cooper schools and currently incumbent principal of the CISCE- affiliated Gopal Sharma School in the commercial capital, seconds this observation. "Unfortunately, provision of advanced learning programmes to gifted students is an alien concept in Indian education. In my 35 years of teaching I have come across many children of above average ability. Typically they are bored in class and are often labelled misfits. Double promotion is ideal for such kids but most schools don’t allow children to skip grades as they believe it’s more effective for them to learn and socialise in their own chronological age group. Moreover teachers often regard gifted children as a threat. They need to be educated about giftedness and how to advance and harness it," says Ghadiali.
Even if somewhat belatedly, educators are awakening to the need to train teachers to cope with students of varying learning ability. For instance the Mumbai-based Waterford Institute India, an educational software company, has developed three computer-based learning programs — the Early Reading Program, the Early Maths Program and The Early Science Program — with an in-built ‘sequencer’ to enable each child to learn at her own pace. "Special children is a term that includes children at both ends of the spectrum — those with learning disabilities and those who are unusually quick learners. Teachers don’t have much expertise in dealing with such children. Therefore the Waterford Institute has developed learning programs to cater to children in the age group four-12, whose learning pace is slow, average and above average. In these programs each child has a personal computer loaded with lessons and information which she can absorb at her own pace. Teachers too can use them to customise learning programs for gifted children," explains Suchi Mathur, senior manager (operations) of the institute.But even as there’s an emerging consensus among educators that gifted children need as much special attention as slow learners, less than optimally trained primary and secondary teachers tend to have a problem identifying truly fast learners. However educators suggest several methodologies for identifying them. One of the most popular is by way of administering intelligence quotient (IQ) tests. Generally children with 140 plus IQ (out of a maximum possible 200) are classified as gifted. In fact Mensa (estb.1946), an international ‘society for bright people’, admits only the 2 percent who top its patented Mensa Standardised Intelligence Test as members. Mensa has 100,000 members across 100 countries, including 2,500 in India. Its mission is to provide an interactive forum for high IQ individuals, and to promote stimulating intellectual and social opportunities for its members, says Dr Sujala Watve, the Pune-based joint national supervisory psychologist of Mensa India.
"Mensa’s intelligence tests are conducted monthly or bi-monthly and are open to individuals above the age of 10 years. There is no coaching or syllabus as we believe that intelligence cannot be trained; it needs to be harnessed. In India about 20,000 children and adults have taken the test in the past 35 years," adds Watve.
But latest research into identification of giftedness has prompted educators to look beyond IQ scores to include teacher observation checklists, parental observations, peer-group nomination, students’ work, national curriculum tests and co-curricular activities. Among the characteristics to watch for are ability to absorb and learn at a much faster pace, processing material in much greater depth and showing intensity of energy, imagination, intellectual prowess, sensitivity, and emotion which is atypical of the general population.
Gifted education: The Oz experience Lionel Cranenburgh, the India-born Perth-based activist of the Western Australian Gifted and Talented Children’s Association and chief executive of Shanon Quest, an education services company, dispatched insights into Australia’s enviable programmes for gifted children to EW readers. Excerpts: Australia’s education policy for gifted students took shape in 1981 with the publication of several national discussion papers including a landmark paper from Western Australia titled ‘Identifying High-Ability Disadvantaged Students’ (of which your correspondent was co-author). Since then there has been growing pressure to share resources on a national scale from the Australian federal government to ensure that all states support gifted and talented students. Australian schools have implemented several initiatives that have received international acclaim. These initiatives include developing guidelines for accelerating students within the curriculum, subject acceleration and year advancement. To ensure there is consistency in policy and programme implementation, each school — government and private — in Australia appoints a case manager for the gifted and talented with a team that provides information about the identification of gifted students and discusses their case histories and progress with parents. The best Australian schools practise a systematic strategic approach to providing support to gifted students. For instance, the state of Queensland’s learning and development centres for the gifted and talented work in partnership with government and private schools to improve the quality of educational provision for gifted children. Assistance is provided through a school implementation plan; advice to teachers, school administrators and parents; design of a differentiated curriculum; and developing strategies for catering to diverse learner needs. Moreover the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented (AAEGT), a national body, ensures education and curriculum resources are provided for gifted students. It works with associations in the states to encourage research into the nature of giftedness, exchange of ideas and experiences to promote teacher training, and techniques for teaching the gifted. While the education of gifted students is a state responsibility rather than that of the federal government, funds are allocated from several sources including individual school budgets, sponsorships, regional grants and state government funds. Federal government grants can also be accessed for gifted education programmes. Parents and teachers play a special part through the formation of associations for gifted students in each state in Australia. These associations are powerful lobby groups which ensure that the needs of gifted students are met at the local level. Since 1981 Australian schools have been particularly sensitive to the needs of students or groups likely to be overlooked for inclusion in gifted programmes. These include girl students, migrants from non-English speaking countries, new settlers, economically and socially deprived students, those with disabilities and aboriginal children. Regular evaluations, data reviews, parent and self-referrals of such children are made to ensure they are not overlooked. Recently some states in Australia have introduced special schools for gifted students with specialised curriculums that enable students in classes VIII-X to receive special education. These students enjoy a differentiated curriculum, highly-trained special staff and opportunities for knowledge extension, acceleration and enrichment. |
But given that India’s crowded schools characterised by above average teacher-pupil ratios rule out personal attention and customised learning programmes, the onus of nurturing gifted students in effect devolves upon alert, persistent and responsive parents. In fact parents play the most important role in creating opportunities and providing supplementary education to gifted children. Nurturing genius is a daunting task and requires application and commitment. Since schools group children by chronological rather than mental age, high performing prodigies often tend to display emotional problems such as depression, boredom and anger. It’s here where parents have to step in to provide emotional support and facilitative home environments.
Comments R. Subramanian, a chartered accountant based in Tirunelvi district of Tamil Nadu and father of child prodigy S. Chandra Sekar, who at age 16 became the youngest engineering graduate in India and is currently a first-year M.Tech student at IIT-Madras: "Against the advice of teachers and friends we decided against forcing Chandra to finish regular school and college, since the school system didn’t offer any accelerated learning programmes for the intellectually gifted. Instead I quit my job in Muscat to return to Tirunelvi and encouraged him to write the Microsoft and Intel online examinations. After that I had to badger Anna University officials to give him a screening test for admission into the university’s BE course when he was just 11 years old. Though his mental age is that of a 30-year-old, physically and emotionally he’s just a child who needs considerable support to interact with people many years older."
However given that most parents of gifted children don’t have the time, money or nurturance capability, and may well be first generation learners themselves, devolving the task of developing special children on them is a solution of limited value. Quite clearly such children need institutional and policy support. And while a small minority of progressive schools are beginning to appreciate the importance of nurturing gifted students, policy support on the lines of the American Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Act, is not even a peripheral blip on the radar screens of the Central or state governments.
With the low official priority given to education and grudging provision made in every Union budget to develop India’s most abundant and high-potential resource — its 450 million children — it will take a long time for India’s educators to grasp that given a solicitous helping hand, the country’s precious resource of 13 million gifted children could provide the economy a development stimulus out of all proportion to its number.
With Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai); Autar Nehru (Delhi) & Gaver Chatterjee (Mumbai)