Education of Gifted Children
Gifted children are gifted for life. They start out gifted and
end up gifted. As a result, they have similar academic needs throughout their
school years. The following are the different administrative provisions for the
education of gifted children.
1. Separate school
Separate school with adequate facilities should be provided
for the gifted children in development their specific abilities and
potentialities. Service of specially trained and qualified teachers should also
be made available for their guidance. But such separation is often criticized
and labeled as undemocratic. The students educated in these schools develop an
aristocratic attitude that might widen the gulf between the privileged and unprivileged.
2. Ability Grouping
It refers to the segregation of the children into different
near-homogeneous groups according to their ability. Students with more or less
similar background are grouped together in the same section. Thus, children of
high ability, of medium ability and of low ability are kept together in
separate groups. When pupils are grouped according to their ability, all gifted
children constitute a separate class.
3. Acceleration or Double Promotion
Acceleration refers to the speeding up of instruction.
Gifted children are fast learners and require little repetition of information.
Acceleration is the process by which the progress of the child is geared to
higher level.
4. Enrichment programme
Enrichment refers to the increased depth of study of a
particular topic. It extends the regular curriculum. In enrichment programme advanced work and extra assignments involving
creative thinking and self study are given to the gifted children according to
their abilities. Enrichment in its most productive form means not adding more
of the same kind of content and activity to the programme but providing a
greater variety of experiences of a more advanced level.
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