Task Force for Maths Genius

Wah, the Ministry of Education has decided that it needed to form a task force to oversee the education needs of six-year-old maths wizard, Adi Putra Abdul Ghani.

The Star has reported that the ministry’s "planning and education research policy director Dr Salleh Hassan said his officers will identify a suitable school for the boy." This was probably a follow up to the comment made by the Minister of Education, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein who argued that Adi should be exposed to "more challenging work."

“His special education package will take into consideration his age, ambition, education programme and the relocation for the boy and his family to attend the school,” he said yesterday.

Hey, how about the Ministry looks at a special programme for all special "geniuses" in the country instead of doing this piecemeal just because a single candidate has been highlighted in the press for his special talents? Wouldn't the effort of the task force to plan for Adi be just about the same, if expanded to include all other talented students?

There should be a special gifted kids programme to be carried out at selected top schools in the country so that the talents of these individuals are given the support, encouragement and facilities to blossom.

I'm not embarrassed to say that the idea is a simple copy-cat thingie from the Singapore education programme, for they have started the gifted students programme and have continuously expanded it since the (if I'm not wrong, 1983). There's nothing wrong with a copy-cat policy if the policy works, and it certainly did for Singapore. I have many friends who were from this programme and I can say that many are all deputy-directors and directors of the administrative service in Singapore, as well as senior managers of the large government-linked copmanies.

From the pool of UPSR candidates, the top say, 1% of the students should be offered additional aptitude tests to determine suitability towards the gifted education programme. They should be provided the opportunities to learn from the top teachers with the best facilities and environment to ensure that their respective intellectual faculties are given the chance to reach their full potential.

The Minister of Education has stated that his Ministry "was determined to cater to the needs of child prodigies as we “don’t want to lose them to the private sector or another country.”" I am certain that we are in agreement with the Ministers' comments. However, the way to achieve the objectives is not be taking up wiz kids on a case-by-case basis through some piecemeal policies but through thorough combing of our young talents and proper structured programmes to fit their needs.