Educating gifted students the fast-track way
By Khushwinder Dhillon

WITH the development of science and technology, the selection and education of gifted children has attracted the attention of educationists all over the world. They possess a superior intellectual potential, are high achievers, creative and outstanding. Increasing efforts are, being made to catch them when they are still young. The idea is to help them develop fully by making special educational provisions in schools.

Usually, three approaches are advocated throughout for educating these children. They are acceleration, enrichment and special grouping. All three have their merits and demerits. The desirable procedure to use would depend on the particular situation involved.

Enrichment is widely used but acceleration is fast gaining recognition for higher education in most of the countries today. Enrichment is when a rich and varied syllabus is open before them to explore. The children are given different kinds of activities to perform. In special grouping the gifted children are grouped separately either in special schools, or in special groups in the normal school and taught separately.

Acceleration (also referred to as skipping means telescoping a fast-track system in which high school students who excel academically can enter a university before finishing their high school curriculum. Acceleration means doubled promotion in school or college where a child can skip one class and go on to the next one.

In the USA and Europe, an early admission system to higher education has been in place for sometime. In some of these countries, there is no minimum age limit for entering a university and exceptions are often made even when there is an age limit.

Lately Japan’s Chiba University has become the first university in Japan to introduce fast-track university entrance system. The system will probably change the existing "6-3-3" education system established after World War II, in which students spend six years at primary school, three years at middle school and three years at high school before entering an institution of higher education.

A fast-track system was first advocated in Japan in 1971. A report submitted to the education minister by his advisory panel, the Central Council for Education, called for early admission of students with high academic abilities. After 20 years of twists and turns, its April 1991 report again recommended that students who excel in specific fields should receive expert instruction at an earlier age.The June 1997 report specified the applicable fields: Mathematics and physics.

Chiba University had been debating the introduction of the fast-track system since 1995. In 1996, the university conducted a summer school for high school students and came to the conclusion that there was very little difference in the comprehension levels of high school and university students. Some of the faculty thought it might be too early to adopt the system, but the university decided in June 1997 to press ahead anyway. On December 21, 1997, eleven high school students took the university’s examination. In the test, the students were asked to write a short essay in answer to the following question. "Describe in a logical way why water disappeared from the surface of Mars". Even among academic circles, there is not yet a theory explaining the disappearance of water from Mars that satisfies everyone. One of the applicants surprised the examiners by outlining an experimental method to prove the logic of his argument.

Several other universities including Hokkaido University, Nagoya University, Kyoto University and Waseda University currently allow high school students early access to a university education. One way or another, some of these universities give academic credits to high school students who attend open seminars at the university on weekends and during the summer holidays. A foundation to establish a fast-track system already exists at another university. Some Japanese believe children should be able to skip grades if they have the ability to do so. They observe it is impossible to ask a child who can run fast to run slowly.

However, opposition to this system is also strong in Japan. Members of Physics and Mathematics Society think that this would lead to an elitist education. Secondly, it is felt that the high school education system will be damaged as the system may be used to allow university to pick and choose high school students with excellent academic scores before they graduate from high school. Thirdly the system will lead to students becoming imbalanced academically because they will be denied a broad range of study in general academic fields if they do not finish the three-year high school curriculum.

The Chiba University President Kosaku Maruyama wrote in an article, "The purpose of adopting the fast-track system is not to provide early education for an elite. We want, instead, to offer a path to talented students so they can advance to higher education".

If 10 out of 99 state universities would adopt this system, then it would be the start of a sea change in the education system in Japan.