A gift of a programme

Majority of those who have contributed to Singapore's success may be from the Gifted Education Programme (GEP), but does that mean that the programme is successful? MOE may have launched the programme, but it does not have much control of it. Hence, how much more credit can we give to MOE besides giving support in terms of funding.

GEP, is simply a label. It has labelled the top 1% from the rest of the students, but does not necessarily provide better education. The GEP primary schools cannot cross the bounderies of preparing primary school students for PSLE in case some of then do not score well and are unable to get into a good secondary school. The results of PSLE each year have shown that the top scorers are usually not GEP students but from the mainstream. Hence, most GEP students do not end up much different from the mainstream students after PSLE because the schools are unable to stretch them further without proving that they can do the basis.

Most top secondary schools in Singapore are independent and has decided to start their own SBGE after in introduction of IP. However, how much different a curriculum can the schools offer these GEP students? One of the major problems is the lack of resources. GEP students have their own strengths and weaknesses, and the top secondary schools are forced to put them together with the mainstream students into science and humanities classes at Sec 3. It is also a complete waste of resources just to get a person to fix a set of syllabus for the lower secondary GEP as there is no one to evaluate it and decide if it's appropriate. It is completely out of MOE's control to decide what is taught to the students as MOE does not even know what is appropriate themselves, having a group of math professors complaining that there are more topics that are important and should be included into the syllabus.

Research has also shown that GEP students do not interact well with other students. GEP may have done its job in nurturing talents, but these talents have poor socializing skills, which are much more important than knowledge, as having good relationships with others would benefit you at times of need. Possessing good moral values and socializing skills have always been valued in Asian societies, and one cannot survive with IQ alone, but also need AQ, CQ, EQ and MQ.

Hence, the GEP may have nurtured top students, but they are already born with smart brains. We cannot give credit to the programme because it has selected the top students, but are unable to turn all of them into president scholars when there are already many from the mainstream.