TITLE:
Developing Gifted and Talented Education Program: The Malaysian Experience
AUTHORS:
Abu Yazid Abu Bakar
KEYWORDS:
Gifted and Talented Education, Gifted and Talented Students, Malaysian Education System
JOURNAL NAME:
Creative Education,
Vol.8 No.1,
January
6,
2017
ABSTRACT: The Malaysian Education Act 550 (1996) outlines six dimensions of national education system namely, the pre-school, elementary, secondary, post-secondary, higher, and special education. Thus, the other paradigms of education; for instance, gifted education, are not considered as mainstreams and do not give considerable attention towards their holistic growth. Even though initiatives to cater for the needs of local population of gifted students or students with high potentials were in existence since the 1960s’, such efforts were short-lived due to factors such as lack of instructions, training, leadership, and resources. As such, the direction of Malaysian gifted education program—especially in the setting of school environment—has never been officially established and the effort to design appropriate curriculum for this population of students has never become a national agenda at the ministry of education (MOE) level. This article shares the experience of Pusat PERMATApintarTM Negara, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (also known as the National Gifted Center) in developing its’ own gifted education school program, which officially started in 2011.