Primary one student David Chan, who had an IQ of above 120, faced huge odds after he skipped primary two following exceptional academic achievement two years ago.

David, who is now 9, had to undergo excruciating experience as his classmates and teachers shunned him, said David's mother. The older classmates considered David as a conceited boy as he always attempted to teach them how to do their homework. "The classmates didn't like that and thought my boy was showing off.Some classmates were even more jealous when they came to know that my son had skipped grade and was much younger than they were.In the class while other students became friends, my son was left in isolation," she said recalling her son's trauma.

"The teacher gave him a corner seat to isolate him from the rest of the class," the mother added.

Despite all this, the boy performed astonishingly well in the class and the school recommended him to skip primary four.

But, the mother won't let her son skip grade. "I don't want him to suffer again," she said.

Grade skipping is meaningless if schools couldn't provide emotional and counseling support. "The children are not mature enough to handle the situation they face," she added.

Grade skipping has become a debatable issue recently in the city after the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) admitted the nine-year-old boy March Tian Boedihardjo for a five-year undergraduate and master program in mathematics. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) medicine faculty also admitted 14-year-old Ho Hoi-lam, who had skipped grades more than once.

Without doubt, March is a mathematics prodigy. But some educators expressed doubts whether March could acquire other skills needed for university graduates. "Mathematics is not the only thing that matters. It will only make thing worse if we do things hastily without careful planning. Both IQ and emotional quotient (EQ) are important," said CUHK engineering professor Zhou Xunyu, who was admitted to Fudan University in Shanghai when he was 15.

The giftedness is not only defined by high IQ.In Hong Kong, giftedness is classified into three levels. The first level refers to the top 10 percent of students in terms of achievement. The second level refers to the top two to four percent of students based on intelligence or excellence achievement. The highest level refers to only 0.1 percent of students according to creativity/ intelligence tests and socio-emotional assessment.

Talents in other fields, such as music and leadership, should also be considered.

Shane Phillipson, associate professor, Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) said the progress of a gifted student depends on the interaction between nature and nurturing. He also added that gifted parents do not necessarily produce gifted students. Even if a child is born with exceptional intellectual potential, education is still important to develop the potential.

Parents' concern for children's nurturing had resulted in the proliferation of IQ schools, and they hoped children could skip grade for a better match between the children's capabilities and the curriculum.

However, Phillipson said grade skipping should only be the last option for many learning acceleration methods, and it must be done on the condition that the gifted/talented students must be allowed to return to lower level should they fail to cope with the new challenge. "Hong Kong parents always try to find a well-intended advantage for their children, sometimes to the detriment of their well-being," he said, adding many parents wanted their children to shorten their schooling for an early start of their career.

He said this might have negative effect. Skipping grade could also mean shortening the students' childhood, which would affect their ability to communicate with their own offspring when they grow up.

"The children who have skipped grade are forced to communicate with students older then them. On the positive side, these children will mature faster. But the downside is, they will miss the childhood experience and may not understand the behavior of the children with same age. They may not understand the childish thinking of their offspring in the future," said Australian Top Training Institute director Cheng Wei-hung.

The higher grade the student skipped to and more specialized curriculum they are given, the higher the risk there is of undermining the student's other achievements, Education Bureau chief curriculum development officer Chan Pui-tin said.

"If we label a student as gifted in a particular aspect and focus training on that aspect when he is too young, then we are limiting his exploring other skills. He may also be gifted at other areas.Longer schooling will give them more time for exploration," he said.

Skipping grade reinforces children's sense of achievement. That would help build up self-confidence, but it would also create problems as the children would become perfectionists and may not be able to handle setbacks. "If we keep on reinforcing the sense of success early on, children would run the risk of giving up easily when encountering failure," he added.

Keeping the students in regular class did not mean their giftedness was not nurtured, Phillipson said. Grade skipping should be allowed only after other methods have been tried, such as allowing the gifted students to study at the higher level only the subjects in which they have profound depth while most other subjects would be taken at regular level; and adjusting the curriculum to only teaching what the child does not know, he added.

(HK Edition 09/17/2007 page7)