In Delhi govt schools, a search for ‘gifted’ students in classes 6 & 9

Under ‘Project on Gifted and Talented Students (Abhishikt)’ — a pilot project of the Delhi education department and the State Council of Educational Research and Training — students will undergo psychological tests and IQ assessments to identify and assess gifted students. These children will be provided “accelerated learning” in 15 designated CBSE schools, where trained teachers will teach them a specially designed curriculum. The project, formally announced on March 6, was initiated last December.

A team of special educators, general teachers and senior administrators from the IEB had visited the Jnana Prabodhini Institute in Pune, which has a unique programme for “gifted children”.

Stuti Gaur, an IEB official who is the senior project coordinator, said: “Students who are gifted, have special talents or high ability, often go unnoticed and unnurtured since they are only seen as good academic performers.” The social and emotional needs of such students remain unfulfilled, she added.

On September 28, 6,000 students from classes 6 and 9 attended the Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CFIT) — the first round. While 172 Class 6 students cleared CFIT, results for Class 9 students are yet to be announced.

The 6,000 students were nominated after school principals recommended their names based on a behaviour checklist provided by the IEB that covered five development domains — physical, social, moral, intellectual, and emotional. The next step will be conducting standardised IQ assessment tests. For this, the consent of the parents of shortlisted candidates was required. For this purpose, an orientation programme was held on October 15 and 16.

The finalisation of the 15 government schools, which will execute the programme, is still on, said officials. The schools will follow the CBSE curriculum with additional curated content, Gaur said. “The curriculum designed by a pool of subject-wise resource persons will focus more on activities and research-based learning. There will be more references, exposure visits, and reading material…,” Gaur said, adding that psychologist counsellors will be roped in to provide support.

Isha Kanhare, a senior psychologist who was part of the Jnana Prabodhini team, pointed out that just because such students have higher cognitive abilities, it would not mean they are emotionally or socially compatible. “Parents should not have the misconception that their children are superior in a stereotypical sense… the focus should be to nurture their talent, meeting all needs, including emotional.”
In an interaction with parents of shortlisted candidates from Class 6, Dr C S Verma, Deputy Director of Education at IEB, also emphasised that awareness among parents is important.