My Game of Life

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Gifted kids to take 'integrated' path
By Loh Chee Kong, TODAY | Posted: 21 September 2006 1335 hrs

In two years' time, the much-debated Gifted Education Programme (GEP) will quietly fade away from secondary schools.

In its place, the Ministry of Education (MOE) wants GEP students to join schools offering the six-year Integrated Programme (IP). This means that GEP students, who are identified in Primary 3, will no longer march to a different beat in secondary school. Instead, they will follow the same curriculum as other bright students who are picked for the IP when they are on the verge of leaving primary school.

In a circular issued on Monday, MOE informed the parents of GEP students in Primary 4 and 5 that it would no longer offer a centralised gifted programme at the secondary school level. The parents of the current batch of Primary 6 pupils were informed in April that they would be the last cohort to be offered the programme, MOE's deputy director of its Gifted Education Branch, Dr Tan Bee Geok, told Today.

There had been criticism that the 22-year-old GEP programme was "elitist". But Dr Tan stressed that the latest move was merely recognition of the fact that more secondary schools were now offering innovative programmes to develop talented students.

- Channelnewsasia.com, 21 Sep

Interact, my foot.
Do you high-and-mighty MOE officials know how the ex-GEP students will die? You think mainstreamers will accept them? Nary a chance.

It's already a long-standing perception of most mainstream students that GEP students only mug and mug, have no life, can't socialise etc. As a result, they WILL be excluded and isloated if you put them in the same class as the mainstream students. I've been in the Gifted Programme for 4.5 years already, i should know.

To prove my point, the following incident happened today between some members from our class and from class 2J, which is in Ortus...

...After school, a few of my classmates (including me) went down to the volleyball court to kope the area to play soccer. Yeah, i know it mgiht be a weird venue, but basically its just an empty open court without any nets or anything, enclosed by tall wire fencing, so its also a suitable place for soccer.
Since we were the first ones there, we started playing first. But then, a while later, those boys from 2J came down. Seeing that we were already using the place, then asked us to play team against them (just so they could use the place), even though they had 5 people and we had double that. We refused, so they started APing us. Insults like "iSpark de...so arrogant, so selfish, no wonder despised by everybody", "They don't dare play against us 'cos they sure lose de", "Play until so lousy still want to play?" all came spewing out. Of course, we just dao-ed them and niaoed them back with comments like "Nevermind, continue despising us, we don't mind." Thanks Bing. =P And of cos, we all the more did not give up the court.
In the end, those guys spoiled our mood, so we too sian to play le, not with a bunch of *insert vulgarity*s sitting at the side flaming us. So we left one hour earlier than planned.
I'll be so glad when Ortus has the IT Emeergency Exercise this week. No more bitching from them.

So anyway, that illustrates my point that GEPers and mainstreamers can't get along well together. I have no idea whether it was a few black sheep from the GEP batch who started putting down the mainstreamers first, or whether it was the mainstreamers who were jealous of our grades and started APing us first. Either way, the friction between both batches of students is a vicious cycle that isn't going to stop any time soon. Its already generating hatred and grudge in the school learning envrionment, and boy, if you put those students together, it's gonna even even uglier.

And the worst part is that even though the report stated that primary school GEP students can still join "schools with school-based special programmes (like IP) that nurture pupils who have special aptitudes and talents", RI is going to merge its GEP and mainstream classes together by next year!

(Actually, that's the main cause of my ire which prompted this post today.)

If you abolish secondary school GEP, that can still be tolerated, because according to the post, "only 13 students [opted] to stay in the GEP over the IP." 13 students, not too much of an impact, not such a big deal. But a few hundred gifted students in a premier school like RI? That's nuts.

GEP IS NOT EQUAL TO SPECIAL PROGRAMMES IN IP, DAMMIT!

I have no idea why the board of directors of RI made such a decision to merge, but what I do know is that a majority of the Rafflesians are rallying together, and both gifted and mainstream students are starting petition after petition against it. But i heard that its not working. Probably because RI, although an independent school, is the school with the most government backing. I mean, it has almost become the face of the Ministy Of Education. So its probably useless trying to argue against them. Gahmen got power but you students hardly got any, if they say merge means merge. Even if your principal is against it (which i highly doubt), also no use, because its the MOE wad! If you dare protest, our Senior Minister can drag you to court summore!

Raffles students, good luck trying to protest against the merger. Even though you're supposed to be rivals with Hwachong, i can't help but feel a sense of pity for you guys. Good Luck too, in the "interaction" between mainstream and ex-GEP students. If it screws up big-time, too bad.

I think application rates of top students to join RI is going to drop drastically in the future.

Luckily, HCI isn't going to implement such a crazy scheme. I suddenly feel so relieved ive joined HCI instead of RI. Phew.

'Twas teh winnar at 8:17 pm.