Experts call for focus on Gulf's gifted children

Spotting a gifted child in any society is one thing. Being able to properly handle and nurture this gift is another. Hence, experts have called for concrete steps to be developed in order to properly guide a gifted child. “Failure to spot the gifted is a crisis, having the wrong teachers to deal with them is a disaster,” Dr Ali Al Qarni, general manger of the Arab Bureau of Education for Gulf States, told participants on the third day of the 12th Asia Pacific Giftedness Conference held in Dubai. Dr Al Qarni urged Gulf state leaderships to act now before it’s too late. “Gulf state leaderships attach great importance to giftedness as a boarding pass to the knowledge society and sustainable development, but education ministries and academic institutions need to materialise the leadership interest and implement practical steps to organise gifted learning process,” Dr Al Qarni said. Dr Al Qarni called for establishing a joint Gulf entity to coordinate gifted sponsoring efforts in the Gulf cooperation council members, formulate policies, and implement a reciprocal visits programme. A proper road map should be drawn up to sponsor gifted children of the Gulf.“Building on this increasing interest, the Arab Bureau for Education for Gulf states has dedicated a special award for the best research paper on giftedness, organising a competition on its electronic portal on different fields, including arts, technology, excellent academic performance and the first Gulf Mathematics Olympics, that was hold In Dubai the capital of innovation and achievement” Dr Al Qarni said. A comprehensive review of the framework polices governing gifted education in the Gulf region should also be done. A number of inclusions should be made, namely providing financial assistance for gifted learning research, developing gifted educational accountability systems for schools, linking identifying gifted tests to the quality services provided to them, and training teachers tasked with supervising gifted. from gulfnews.com