GEP

Yes, the gifted education programme aka GEP's in the limelight these days. Somebody wrote in to the forum "complaining" about an education centre that is offering training courses to help a child get into GEP. The author believes such courses are giving children unnecessary stress and it is not fair for those whose parents are not rich enough to send them to such courses. I will not go into the debate that is going on in the forum, but there is something that I do not agree with.

Contrary to believe that IQ is innate, IQ can actually be trained. Do this simple exercise yourself. Take an IQ test at a reputable website, and record your score. Then for the next 3 months, you go to other not-as-reputable websites that offers IQ questions/tests every now and then to hone your skills. Then go back to the same reputable website and re-do the IQ test. You will find it is not difficult to increase your IQ by another 10 points.

Such being the case, we really cannot fault the parents who wants to send their children to get into GEP. Give them kids a chance to practise, but no need to stress to much on getting into GEP. After all, GEP is not a guaranteed road to success.