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Doubts about gifted education strategy
by Hedy Wong
Educators have doubts about the effectiveness of the government¡¦s plan to set up an academy to nurture gifted students in Hong Kong .
They criticise education officials for lacking a vision in the strategy on gifted education and a detailed planning on how to make use of the resources to train more talented young people.
¡§The policy (on the academy) and the resources allocation are unclear,¡¨ said Chan Ka-wai, the principal of G.T. (Ellen Yeung) College, the first gifted school under the government¡¦s direct subsidy scheme.
The government has proposed to establish an Academy for Gifted Education for 10,000 students, or about two per cent of the youngsters aged between 10 and 18, to expand the talent pool for Hong Kong .
At present, only 0.1 per cent of the secondary school student population, or no more than 500 students, can benefit from off-site gifted education programmes and support, which are provided by the government and related expert groups.
Mr Chan, however, has estimated that at least 10 per cent of the students are gifted with different talents and should be given support.
The educator said he still welcomed the proposal of the academy for gifted students because ¡§it is better than nothing¡¨.
Government officials are urged to do more ¡§homework¡¨ as they have failed to give any details of the planned institute and how its $200 million budget, half of the funding to be donated by Sir Joseph Hotung, will be spent.
The government funding for gifted education for the past two fiscal years was just $29 million each.
The gifted school principal said he worried about how the new resources would be spent. He suggested the planned academy to be more focus on developing the disciplines that Hong Kong has been developing, such as music. It will be ¡§impractical¡¨ to start courses for ¡§too specific¡¨ subjects, such as research on dinosaurs, he said.
Under the government plan, the proposed academy will ¡§narrow the present service gap¡¨ by providing more learning opportunities for exceptionally gifted students outside school to help them make achievements with their potential.
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