Nurturing gifted students
The Permata Pintar programme, initiated by Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor in 2009, is proving that its emphasis on maximising the potential of talented youths is a smart investment.
MALAYSIA is committed to developing learning institutions rooted in equity, where the pursuit of excellence is each student’s goal.
Equity refers to giving every learner the opportunity to have supported access to the highest possible quality education.
Excellence refers to the opportunies students will have to maximise his or her learning potential.
As all adolescents go through unique changes, these learning opportunities should be designed to accommodate their various and diverse learning curves.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak believes that it’s vital to nurture gifted children, from as young as two years old.
Nurturing gifted students
In his speech at a Permata exhibition in December 2011, Najib said Malaysia is serious about providing education for students with lower (children with learning disabilities, dyslexia, Down syndrome, hearing and visual impairments) and medium (students at normal daily schools) learning abilities.
But he said that students who are extremely gifted and talented have been forgotten or left behind in the education system. They have not had access to the best possible curriculum that could promote their potential to the fullest.
At best, the educational provision tailored for this group (accelerated classes and enrichment programmes) has been sporadic in nature.
He said that those at the “top most of the intellectual pyramid”, namely the gifted and talented, had not been given sufficient attention in many areas, particularly in education. As such, these individuals look for greener pastures in other countries, resulting in the brain drain issue that has plagued Malaysia for decades.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, the Education Ministry has implemented various programmes for gifted children.
In 1962, the express class was introduced in schools, and in 1996 a Level One Assessment system was introduced for Standard Three pupils.
But these efforts to identify and develop gifted students have not been sustained, due to the lack of direction, leadership, training and funding.
A study conducted by the Education Ministry in 2000 showed that half of the students in express classes did not perform well in their Standard Six National examination.
The need to develop the potential of gifted and talented children in Malaysia to produce national talents was also stressed in the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010) Paper Issue written by the Malaysian Inter-Agency Planning Group (IAPG).
The need to develop human talents became even more critical as Malaysia plans to be an industrialised nation by 2020.
Subsequently, a study was conducted by the Education Planning and Research Department, Ministry of Education (EPRD) in 2006 to examine the need to devise a special education programme for the gifted and talented in Malaysia.
The programme or school should be able to provide learning opportunities for the gifted and talented. The report even recommended that such schools should be set up in every district in the country.
But if there is limited funding to attain such a goal, at the very least the government needs to adopt an inclusive approach. This means that the gifted students study in the same school but a gifted class is created for them. The curriculum suggested is a combination of enrichment, compacting and accelerated approach to teaching.
In 2009, the government initiated the Permata Pintar programme for gifted and talented students.
The programme was conceived by the Prime Minister’s wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor who has a keen interest in helping gifted students develop their potential.
With the government’s support, in particular the Prime Minister’s Department, a steering committee was set up to examine the feasibility of developing gifted and talented programme for Malaysian children.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was given the mandate to develop, implement and monitor the implementation of this programme. They manage the national gifted centre known as Pusat Permata Pintar Negara, which was launched on April 3 2009.
Rosmah is the chairperson of Permata Foundation and also the patron of the Permata Pintar programme. The Permata Pintar College enrols gifted students between nine and 15, and has educated more than 1,057 gifted students from all walks of life. Since the centre’s inception, 560 graduates have gone on to pursue their undergraduate and post graduate studies levels locally and abroad.
Fulfilling their potential
At present, there are 427 Permata Pintar students doing their undergraduate studies, 109 students doing their preparation programme and 24 pursuing their Masters or Ph.D in various universities in the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Japan, France, Germany and Russia.
Permata Pintar students have also been able to gain admission into Ivy League universities including Stanford University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, Brown University and Johns Hopkins University.
Some of these gifted students were enrolled in their various academic programme at a very young age, some as young as 14 years old.
The Permata Pintar College has also won accolades in various fields, including the National Robotic Competition and World Robotic Competition, F1 in School, World International Chess Competition, Pulze International Open Chess Competition, Biology Olympiad, World Scholar Cup, Model United Nation Competition, Genius Olympiad, International Invention, Innovation and Technology Exhibition, Mighty Minds Competition, Asean + 3 Competition, Apec Future Scientist Conference, and International Future Scientist Conference.
Here are some of the Permata Pintar alumni’s success stories:
Menusha Arumugam, Bachelor of Biology, Michigan University, the US.
Now pursuing her doctorate studies in Biology at the Van Andel Institute of Graduate School Michigan.
Nur Syazana Natasha Hisham, graduated with a Bachelor of Chemistry, from University of California Davis, the US. She won the Outstanding Leadership Award while pursuing her Master of Science in NanoTechnology at University College London, and was accepted at Imperial College London for Nanomaterial Doctorate studies.
Vivien Ho Wei Wen, graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles, in the US.
Graduated with a degree in Biosciences with a CGPA of 3.9 at a young age of 19. She is now doing her BioScience’s Doctor of Philosophy at Oxford University.
Fathin Nur Amirah Mohd Nor is the winner of the ACCA World Prize Winner Award.
She won first place in Malaysia and ranked 5th in the world (Performance Management) in December 2015.
Faisal Hamdan, graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Physics, from Arizona State University, US. He is a Mouer Award recipient with a CGPA of 4.00, and is pursuing his Doctor of Philosophy at Cambridge University.
Koo Jia Hui, has a degree in Microbiology, from the University of Wisconsin Madison, US. She graduated with a CGPA of 3.93, and is pursuing her Doctor of Philosophy at Oxford University at the age of 19.