6.1 The terms, 'special populations' , 'disadvantaged groups' and 'populations with special needs', are used by Australian educationalists to include Aborigines, children from non-English speaking backgrounds, children with disabilities, economically deprived children, isolated children and girls.1 The Victorian Government submitted that there are proportionately as many gifted children among these groups as there are in the wider population.2
6.2 In this report, most of the Committee's comments refer to gifts that most Australians would easily recognise and which they would accept as being useful to Australian society. These include high intellectual ability, sporting ability and gifts in cultural activities such as music, dance and painting. The Committee assumes that these gifts would also be recognised and valued by many people deemed to belong to 'special populations', For example, economically deprived children and girls.
6.3 In Australia, there has bean little published research on giftedness among special populations. The most significant Australian publication in this field, The Education of Gifted and Talented Children from Populations with Special Needs: Discussion Document,3 consists of a report of a National Workshop, sponsored by the Commonwealth Schools Commission (CSC) in October 1984 and the papers prepared for that Workshop. The Workshop participants made several recommendations under major headings such as Awareness, Identification and Program Development. The Committee's inquiry indicated that little has been done to implement any of the Workshop's recommendations.
6.4 In 1981, the Education Department of Western Australia published a discussion paper entitled, Identifying High-Ability Disadvantaged Students. The discussion paper reported on the 'Priority Exceptional Students Study' (PrESS) which was intended 'to trial special provisions for high-ability students from disadvantaged bsckgrounds'.4 The authors of the report observed:
Many exceptionally able children manage to overcome social and economic disadvantage; however many others do not. It is important that children from such backgrounds are not doubly disadvantaged by schooling which produces expectations of achievement based on social origins.5
The PrESS study suggested that there are significant numbers of gifted students from special populations. These children should be identified using multi-faceted identification procedures. They require special educational provisions if they are to achieve their potential.
6.5 A high proportion of disadvantaged students fail to complete secondary schooling. This has been shown in Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) surveys.6 Commonwealth Government educational policy for several years has been to alleviate disadvantage, though the focus has been on the achievement of basic literacy and numeracy rather than on the development of gifts. Commonwealth programs have included the Disadvantaged Schools Program, the Priority Schools Program and the Participation and Equity Program.
6.6 As mentioned in paragraph 6.3, the education of gifted children from special populations was addressed at the national level in 1984 when the CSC's Advisory Group on the Education of Gifted and Talented Children sponsored a national workshop on populations with special needs. In the following paragraphs the Committee discusses the education of gifted children from the special populations identified at that workshop.
6.7 Special attention has been given to the education of girls not because they receive less schooling than boys, but because they tend to choose courses which lead to less rewarding careers.
6.8 Girls are significantly more likely than boys to continue their schooling until year 12. In 1986, over fifty-two per cent of girls reached this level, compared with less than forty-six per cent of boys.7 Females qualify for higher education in greater numbers than males, and exceed males in the number of first degree courses they commence. In 1986, nearly fifty-three per cent of students who commenced a bachelor's degree were female.8
6.9 Girls are less likely than boys to attempt mathematics and science for their final school examinations. According to the New South Wales Board of Senior School Studies, girls comprised twenty-nine per cent of the candidates for the 1985 High School Certificate 4-unit mathematics, twenty-seven per cent for physics and forty per cent for chemistry.9 Whilst girls participation rates in these subjects are gradually increasing, most able girls still continue to study the humanities and social sciences. This restricts their career options because of the high number of tertiary courses which require mathematics or science.10 More than half the female students who commenced a bachelor degree course at Australian universities in 1986 enrolled for an Arts degree. The corresponding figure for males was twenty-eight per cent.11
6.10 Some witnesses considered that girls are under-represented in programs for gifted children. The Commonwealth Department of Education asserted:
There is evidence that the proportion of females in programs for the gifted is much lower than the proportion of males, and that the proportion of girls in secondary programs for the gifted is much lower than in the primary years.12
An evaluation the UHS acceleration program, however, found that there was no obvious sex difference in selection for the program except that boys predominated in 1982, because a number of girls declined places.13 Another finding of that evaluation was that there are few gender differences in interests, achievement and leadership among students in the program.14 The Committee's observation of programs and the information submitted by witnesses in Western Australia indicate that even if more boys qualify for programs, girls fill half the places.15
6.11 There is a lack of specific information about giftedness among girls, despite the increased attention paid to their education in recent years. This may be because the focus has been on increasing the participation rates of girls in subjects, and hence in careers which traditionally are male-oriented. An example of this approach may be found in a paper written by Dr Shirley Sampson of the Faculty of Education, Monash University. She observed:
Whilst there are special problems associated with the education of girls who are gifted and talented, in the main the difficulties we face in identifying and nurturing excellence in this half of our student population are similar to those we face for girls as a whole.16
6.12 Dr Sampson and other writers have suggested several reasons why girls tend to study the humanities and to be relatively unsuccessful in mathematics and science. These include the attitude of teachers, who are said to spend more time with boys than girls, the attitude of boys in the schools 'who practise dominance behaviour' over girls and a male-oriented curriculum.17 Dr Sampson also observed:
Problems fall roughly into three principal areas, all reflecting the influence of the hidden curriculum, namely, aspects of classroom interaction including teacher perceptions, the lack of confidence or self-esteem in many girls, and the lack of female role models for leadership or excellence in either school or society at large.18
6.13 In May 1987, the Commonwealth Schools Commission issued a report, The National Policy for the Education of Girls in Australian Schools,19 which recommended changes to allow girls and boys similar chances of school success. These changes will not, in themselves, be sufficient unless they also cater for the girls' individual differences. If they do, such changes will also benefit gifted girls. The important point in the context of gifted education is that entry to special programs and the curricula and organisation of these programs should provide equal opportunities for girls and boys. The evidence available to the Committee does not indicate, however, that there is discrimination against gifted girls in the relatively few programs available for gifted children in Australia.
6.14 The Committee heard conflicting evidence on the presence of migrant children in programs for the gifted. Mr Ralph Pirozzo, who directs the Peninsula Enrichment Program in Queensland, observed that large numbers of migrant groups were involved in his classes.20 Mr Harslett, Superintendent of the Academic Extension Branch, Education Department of Western Australia, informed the Committee, however, that there were no students with recent migrant backgrounds in the selective PEAC courses in his State.21 Plans were under consideration in Western Australia for a computer education program for migrant children similar to that run for Aboriginal children, to help overcome the language barrier.22
6.15 Dr Stephens, Principal Curriculum Officer of the Victorian Ministry of Education, remarked on 'the very large proportion of young people in our schools whose first language is not English and, correspondingly, their very low representation in special programs for gifted and talented children'.23 He commented:
It really is a national scandal that so many young children, whom we presume have gifts and abilities, do not show up because I suspect the criteria on which they are selected either into special programs or into school-based programs are so heavily language-based and culturally based.24
6.16 Gifted children from families of recent non-English speaking new settlers or from families which do not value education and academic talent are unlikely to be identified if the identification processes are language and culture specific. Ms Endean, Lecturer in Education at the University of Queensland, remarked on some interesting cases of gifted children she bad identified when using the Structure of the Intellect (SOILA) test. The SOILA is a non-verbal test of general intellectual ability. She observed:
These are children who, until they had been tested, the teachers had thought were nonentities and suddenly discovered that they had all kinds of abilities in areas like spatial, divergent reasoning and so on which were important to them in what they were doing outside school, but which had no place in school. They were fairly quiet because either they were not familiar with the language or, worse still, they were not too familiar with the language and were female and came from an ethnic background in which they should be seen and not heard . . .25
Non-verbal tests of general intellectual ability might help in the identification of the gifts of children from non-English speaking backgrounds. Mrs Murphy, an Educational Psychologist with the Victorian Ministry of Education, remarked, however, that many migrant children are also socially disadvantaged and have not had the stimulation to develop what skills they have.26
6.17 Dr Boyd, Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, related to the Committee the case of a young girl of Turkish background. Testing showed her to be a highly advanced reader at age nine, but she had slumped to be merely average in four years. In Dr Boyd's opinion, the most likely explanation for the girl's inability to continue performing well was the birth of siblings. The girl was involved in additional household duties and the total care of her brothers and sisters during the holidays. Dr Boyd suggested that the resultant drop in her contacts and social or cultural stimulation sufficed to snuff out the flicker of talent shown.27
6.18 The Committee was informed of a case in which a Maltese boy gained entrance to the UHS acceleration program almost by accident. A teacher happened to meet the child's parents, who spoke poor English, and was able to explain to them the notice which had been sent home, and the purpose of the program. They then nominated their son for the program and he was accepted. Mrs Murphy, who has conducted a study of the UHS program, considers that the social disadvantage of southern European children contributes to their language disadvantage to exclude them from selection.28
6.19 The Committee received contradictory evidence in relation to the degree to which a lack of fluency in English affects gifted children. One witness asserted that gifted children who are not fluent in English tend to learn it quickly.29 Mrs Martin, a member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Multicultural and Migrant Education, Victoria, on the other hand, informed the Committee that children may not learn English as quickly as some people assume. She estimated that a child, even a gifted child, who is moved from one language environment to another, takes about a year and a half to achieve basic competence in the second language, and from five to seven years to catch up on cognitive and literacy skills. In the interim, the child will almost certainly under-achieve in any cognitively demanding curriculum area.30
6.20 Dr Braggett has observed that the values espoused in most schools reflect those of the majority culture.31 Teachers therefore experience difficulty in recognising talents which the dominant culture does not value, Australian teachers tend to value writing and reading skills, originality and competitiveness, particularly in the academic sphere. Children from non-English speaking backgrounds may experience conflict between the different value systems to which they are exposed. Despite commendable attempts to foster multiculturalism in Australian schools, it appears that children who look or speak differently from most other children at the school experience some difficulties. Dr Srzednicki, Reader in Philosophy, University of Melbourne, commented:
The difficulty that a child from a migrant or ethnic background will have is that already there is a fair amount of resentment . . .Someone who speaks with an accent and eats different food already stands out. If on top of it he stands out because of his achievements, the social adjustment is a great deal worse than it would have been for a native [born] Australian . . .32
6.21 The under-representation of migrant children in specialised programs for gifted children has prompted attempts to include students from non-English speaking backgrounds in programs. In the first year of the UHS acceleration program, test scores were weighted in favour of two migrant children so that they could be included. The results were described as 'quite negative' . The migrant students had great difficulty in keeping up with the other students, yet were opposed to transferring out and thus appearing to have failed.33
6.22 A lack of ability in English need not prevent gifted children from non-English speaking backgrounds from receiving an appropriate education. Mentor programs or other individualised programs could be used to help such students develop their talents.
6.23 As mentioned in paragraph 6.1, it is reasonable to expect that there are gifted children among the economically and socially deprived. Identification of these children may, however, present difficulties. In this respect they have much in common with the children of new non-English-speaking settlers. These children may be alienated from the values of the school and its staff because of the different values they hold. As indicated in paragraph 6.20, teachers pre less likely to identify gifted students who subscribe to minority values.
6.24 It has been suggested that some economically or socially disadvantaged families do not place a high value on education. There could be several reasons for this. It may be that some people are preoccupied with survival. Some children may not have enough food, or nourishing food, or may be cold. The leisure-time experiences of children who are economically deprived will most likely be limited. Other social repercussions of poverty may include eviction, violence, absence from school and more life crises than are usual among more affluent people.34
6.25 Figures from an ACER survey of participation rates indicate that whilst about 60 per cent of children with professional fathers complete Year 12, only half that number with fathers who are unskilled workers do so.35 Only one in ten children of unskilled workers enrols in higher education.36 The ACER survey further indicated that equally capable students from poor families are slightly less likely to participate in post-compulsory education than are their wealthier counterparts.37
6.26 Research conducted by Dr Joan Abbott-Chapman and her colleagues at the Centre for Education of the University of Tasmania into retention rates of students showed that only two per cent of students from the most disadvantaged social, economic and institutional backgrounds who completed Year 10 in Tasmania in 1981 went on to university. This figure compared with thirty-three per cent from the 'most advantaged' backgrounds.38 Dr Abbott-Chapman's survey also included data on retention rates for more able students. About twenty-three per cent of the total age cohort in 1981 was designated as 'able' or 'very able' on the School Assessed Ability Potential Index. Of these more able students, fifty-three par cent of those classified by the researchers as 'most advantaged' on an index of educational handicap entered university and only four per cent failed to progress past Grade 10. The comparative drop-out figures for students from 'very disadvantaged' and 'most disadvantaged' backgrounds were thirty-one per cent and twenty-one per cent, respectively.39 The researchers concluded that the development of intellectual potential is highly dependent on favourable social and economic circumstances. They found, however, that students from certain schools, whether or not the school was in a disadvantaged area, were more likely to remain in education than those from other schools.
6.27 Commonwealth special purpose education programs, such as the Participation and Equity Program (PEP) and the Disadvantaged Schools Program were introduced in an attempt to reduce the disadvantages of some children and to encourage more children to remain longer in education. Mr R.W. Harris, Acting Assistant Commissioner, Equity and Schools Branch of the CSC suggested to the Committee that government programs which provide opportunities for all disadvantaged students would facilitate the identification of and provision for gifted children from disadvantaged backgrounds.40 The recently introduced financial assistance scheme, Austudy, may help retain some gifted children at school. It seems unlikely, however, that such scheme will have much impact on the education of gifted children, unless more provision is made specifically for the gifted.
6.28 The Committee heard criticism of the use of tests of general intellectual ability to identify talented socio-economically disadvantaged students. Mr Ralph Pirozzo informed the Committee that he does not use these tests to select students for his Peninsula Enrichment Program on the ground that they are biased against children from disadvantaged backgrounds. He accepts all children referred to him by parents, guidance officers, psychologists and others.41 The Peninsula Enrichment Program is an extra-curricular program so students who lose interest or cannot cope soon withdraw.
6.29 The evidence suggests that the cultural values of gifted students from disadvantaged backgrounds are at least a partial explanation for academic under-achievement. Dr Boyd referred to a talented young boy in a working class family whose one interest was sport. The boy had no ambition beyond enjoying a similar lifestyle to that of his parents, despite his potential for something different.42 Mrs Murphy remarked:
In our study of gifted working-class under-achievers, we found the most common cause of under-achievement was the need to adhere to the values of the cultural group to which they belonged. To enable these children to reach their intellectual potential, it seems necessary to put them with a group with different values, and also to have close contacts with the parents of the group who often do not see education as important.43
Whether this would be welcomed is a moot point. Indeed, Mrs Murphy observed that it may be presumptuous 'to impose what must be seen as alien values on children and parents who vehemently and sincerely dislike these values'.44
6.30 Respect for different cultural values should be basic to Australian society and, hence, to Australian education. Respect for different values, however, should not be used as an excuse for not providing appropriate education for gifted children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Committee considers that what is required for the education of these children is a variety of different approaches. These could include opportunities for them to be educated full-time with students with different values.
6.31 The Committee's earlier observation that notions of giftedness vary according to cultural values applies particularly to Aborigines. Talents which might be of great value to Aboriginal people living in the traditional way may not be particularly useful to Aboriginal people living in cities.45 Development of gifts and talents among children living in the traditional way is a matter for their own leaders who would know best what is needed. Any initiatives taken in Aboriginal education in this matter should be supported by governments. For Aboriginal children who live in the cities and towns the situation is different.
6.32 Profound cultural differences, poverty, low expectations and the lack of successful role models may all militate against the positive development of Aboriginal talent in European Australia. Talent, however, knows no boundaries of race, religion or status. There are Aboriginal children living in urban areas whose gifts could be developed within mainstream schools. This would not be easy because it may be difficult to design appropriate measures to identify giftedness among Aboriginal children and to provide appropriate programs. Mr Vic Forrest, an Aboriginal educator, has commented that notions of giftedness should 'be expanded beyond the bounds of conventional white, middle class society. Identification procedures should not be confined to traditional tests of intelligence, which are normed on different populations . . .'46
6.33 Mr Forrest has suggested that programs for gifted and talented Aboriginal children should incorporate subject areas important to Aboriginal and Islander groups.47 The National Aboriginal Education Committee (NAEC) has noted the importance of providing for Aboriginal co-operative learning styles. The NAEC also referred to a need to provide a differentiated curriculum which would emphasise breadth and depth of knowledge development in areas such as Aboriginal pharmacology, food sources or kinship patterns, and in cultural comparisons.48
6.34 The Education Department of Western Australia has established a program for gifted Aboriginal children at the Balga PEAC in Perth. The program was initiated in 1983 when it was realised that despite their prevalence in the area, no Aboriginal children had ever been identified as eligible for the Department's PEAC withdrawal programs. The Department was also concerned that the rate of truancy among Aboriginal children suggested they were disenchanted with the schooling they were receiving.
6.35 Children are identified for selection for the program by teachers who use an observational rating scale based on the Renzulli model, as modified by Dr Judith Kearins of the University of Western Australia. Whilst teachers' observation is a fairly subjective approach, it is the most valid so far devised. The child's interest in the program is also taken into consideration.49
6.36 Aboriginal children selected for the program are withdrawn from their usual classes for one half day each week for twelve weeks. All the children are students at primary schools in the vicinity of Balga. The course includes two main components - aspects of Aboriginal culture and computing. The computing element was chosen because of its suitability for Aboriginal group learning styles. The two strands of the program are interwoven through the recording of aspects of Aboriginal culture in photographs and on video, with the descriptive text produced by word processing. Students may take home the booklets they produce or take them to their usual school classes to show aspects of the program they have been involved in and to assist in the regeneration of Aboriginal culture.50
6.37 Available computer software was not particularly suitable for the Balga program, so funding was obtained from the Commonwealth Schools Commission to develop appropriate software to capitalise on Aboriginal learning styles and incorporate Aboriginal cultural activity. The local community was involved in the design process,51 The software that has been developed should benefit other centres throughout Australia, even if it requires minor modifications to be totally acceptable to other tribal or racial groups.
6.38 The Commonwealth Government's financial support for the development of software for the Balga program for gifted Aboriginal children was an important element in its establishment. Dr Mossensen, a former Director-General of Education in Western Australia, alluded to the irony of having to tailor grant applications to the Schools Commission so as to emphasise that the program is intended to benefit disadvantaged populations, including Aboriginals, rather than gifted populations. He observed:
Numbers of people who are opposed to the whole question of provision for gifted children seem to associate it with further benefits for the more privileged whereas I think we were able to demonstrate . . . that it is amongst disadvantaged populations that some of the greatest advantages and benefits of programs for the gifted may operate.52
6.39 Aboriginal students suffer severe disadvantages which warrant their identification as a group to receive Commonwealth attention and funding under programs such as the Projects of National Significance. The Committee considers, nevertheless, that funding intended to develop the special gifts of any students should be designated as being for that purpose rather than for some other purpose.
6.40 An Australian scholar who has written about gifted people with disabilities has observed that 'history and contemporary evidence indicate that some of those whose achievements have been outstanding have also been disabled'.53 The achievements of Helen Keller, Alan Marshall, Toulouse Lautrec and Franklin Roosevelt are well known examples of ability triumphing over physical handicap.
6.41 The exact number of handicapped children in Australia is difficult to establish, because the different States use different definitions of handicaps. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has estimated that 3 per cent of the school-aged population, or 100,000 children, may suffer from a disability with a further 40,000 children aged less than five years having some form of disability.54 These figures may underestimate the extent of the problem. Dr Leder, Co-ordinator of Special Education, Monash University, extrapolating from data collected in the United States of America for children requiring special education, has suggested that 3 per cent of Victorian children aged from five to fourteen years have learning disabilities, 3.5 per cent suffer speech impairment, 2.3 per cent are mentally retarded, 2 per cent may be emotionally disturbed, 0.5 per cent have hearing impairments, 0.1 per cent are visually impaired and 0.5 per cent are orthopaedic ally handicapped.55
6.42 Although there may be proportionately as many gifted children among those with disabilities as among the rest of the population, their gifts may be obscured by their handicapping condition.56 Special educational provision for children with disabilities, if any is made, tends to be made according to the nature of the handicap or according to medical need. Identification of giftedness amongst children with disabilities may also be complicated because teachers are unlikely to have any training in or experience of gifted education, and so may interpret atypical behaviour as being the result of the handicap, not of talent. The difficulties of identifying talent among people with disabilities has been illustrated by the well-publicised story of Annie McDonald, who is severely physically disabled. Annie McDonald, with the assistance of a committed mentor, co-authored a published book and enrolled in a humanities course at a tertiary institution.57 Without her mentor's persistence, it is extremely unlikely that her talents would ever have been discovered or developed. Dr Rex Newsome of the Department of Psychology, University of Queensland, became highly regarded academic in spite of being severely disabled. He observed that people with disabilities may require so much time to cope with the everyday matters of existence that the time and energy available for anything else is limited.58 More time may be spent on therapy, on overcoming problems, than on fostering special skills in areas of strength.
6.43 The Committee is not aware of any education programs in Australia that are intended to cater for gifted children with disabilities. Some programs, however, may have that outcome without having that aim. Given the individualised nature of instruction in schools for children with disabilities, it is at least possible that talent could be fostered. Music and art therapy programs exist in most special schools for children with physical disabilities.
6.44 There are some programs for gifted children with disabilities in other countries. One of these is the Retrieval and Acceleration of Promising Young Handicapped Talented (RAPYHT) program at the University of Illinois, which was established in 1975. The RAPYHT program is suitable for use in any pre-school for mildly to moderately handicapped children. During the first half of the school year, enrichment activities are used to encourage creativity, higher level thinking and problem solving in all children. Screening instruments for teachers to use to identify gifted children and a questionnaire for parents have been developed. Teachers learn to focus on the children's strengths as well as their weaknesses. The top ten per cent of children in each talent area are identified and proceed to the next stage of the program. Individualised programs are prepared for the selected children. Parental involvement at all stages is actively encouraged.
6.45 Evaluations of the program have found that children's self-concepts are improved and that parents are helped to adjust to their child's disability. Teachers involved in the program develop better feelings about the children and more competence in providing for them. It enables all children to function better. By 1986, seventy-seven pre-schools in eighteen States had adopted the RAPYHT program.59
6.46 In this section of the report, the Committee considers gifted children who are geographically isolated. These are not only children from families that can afford to send their children to boarding school, but also include children from the full spectrum of people living in isolated areas.60
6.47 The disadvantages of isolation cannot be underestimated. They affect every child, including gifted children. The extent of the disadvantage to isolated children varies according to the degree and permanency of isolation and the family situation. If the family is willing and can afford to send children to boarding school, those children may be able to develop their gifts. Otherwise the isolated child and the parents must cope with education through correspondence or schools of the air.
6.48 Schooling by correspondence demands a high degree of motivation on the part of both the child and the supervising parent. Mrs Raboczi, a teacher at the Queensland Correspondence School, informed the Committee that the drop-out rate among Correspondence School students is 'horrendous'.61 Mrs Raboczi suggested that two-thirds of the social and emotional needs of gifted children cannot be met by correspondence. Isolated children will not have access to resources such as computer equipment and libraries. They will not come into contact with specialised personnel and will have few cultural facilities. Gifted children are most unlikely to come into contact with their equally talented peers in their vicinity and, in some cases, no age peers at all will be available.62
6.49 Children who live in the country may be severely disadvantaged compared with children who live in cities, even if they are not isolated in the strict sense of the word. This disadvantage may arise because there is a high proportion of less experienced teachers in country schools, high teacher turnover, fewer facilities in the schools, fewer subjects on offer and reduced access to out-of-school learning opportunities.63 The gifted child, moreover, is unlikely to find equally gifted counterparts in a small group of students, and is unlikely to have access to expert teachers or mentors.
6.50 Dr Abbott-Chapman's survey of able Tasmanian students mentioned in paragraph 6.26 indicated that twenty-seven per cent of those who left school after Year 10 came from outside the major centres of Hobart, Launceston and the northern coastal towns. Only sixteen per cent of the able students who went on to university came from outside the major cities. Additionally, the percentage of 'high potential' and 'very high potential' students from rural or isolated areas who left school after Year 10 was higher than would have been anticipated from their population frequency.64 Living in the country was shown to have a generally adverse influence on post-compulsory school participation rates. Some local District High Schools, however, had features of school culture and organisation which marked them out a 'successful' in terms of student retention.65 The ACER study of participation rates in education discussed earlier in this report took into account the effects of living in the the country. The study concluded:
The data presented suggest lower participation rates by rural youth in most forms of education. In some cases the rural-urban differences in participation rates may be as much as ten percentage points, but in most instances four to five per cent fewer rural students enter post-compulsory education.66
6.51 Identification of isolated gifted children is particularly difficult because these children do not often have any face-to-face contact with teachers or consultants or with other children with whom they might be compared. Nevertheless twenty-two of the three hundred and seventy-four students of the Queensland Secondary Correspondence School in 1986 regularly received 'enriched' materials. They were identified as being gifted by teachers at the school.
6.52 The enrichment materials for students of the Queensland Secondary Correspondence School were developed by teachers at the school. They removed the repetitive elements from the weekly instruction papers and replaced them with materials requiring higher level thinking skills and cross-disciplinary applications.67 Some intellectually gifted students living in remote locations therefore are given an opportunity to accelerate or to broaden their learning experiences.
6.53 Some aspects of isolation may be beneficial to the education of the gifted child. Isolated children who persevere with their studies are likely to become more independent and more self-motivated than other children, and may display above average initiative in pursuing interests. Where children are educated by correspondence or School of the Air, they interact on a one-to-one basis with teachers. It is theoretically possible, therefore, to design flexible individual programming to meet some of the needs of those who are academically talented. Isolated gifted children, nevertheless need to interact with their intellectual peers. Camps, centralised workshops or teleconferencing may be organised. These are all expensive, and teleconferencing is possible only if there are appropriate technological facilities. Advanced technology should lessen the isolation of all children eventually, but until the cost of communications by satellite reduced, interactive means of communicating with peers, or mentors will be severely restricted.
6.54 A Federal Government progress which appeared to alleviate some of the hardships suffered by isolated children studying by correspondence or School of the Air was the Loan Video Program. In 1986-87, the Commonwealth provided $1.3 million to the States for the lending of television sets, video players and videotaped educational materials to isolated isolated children.68 Commonwealth funding for the Loan Video Program was not continued beyond 1987. An officer of the Commonwealth Department of Education informed a Senate Estimates Committee in October 1987 that a number of States may continue to support the program 'from other funds at their disposal'.69
6.55 The production and distribution of more high quality instructional materials could enhance the quality of education for all children, not only the isolated gifted. Mr Imison, President of the Australian Association for the Education of the Gifted and Talented, suggested:
. . . in distance education there have to be packages designed for gifted children, otherwise it makes a mockery of distance education which really should be the most individualised of all education. If educational systems can put together those packages, then they should be made available for other schools . . .70
The Committee recommends that appropriate videotapes and associated materials for isolated gifted children be funded by the Commonwealth Government and developed in conjunction with subject specialists and experts in gifted education.
6.56 The Country Areas Program, which received $10 million in 1985 from the Commonwealth Schools Commission, funds a variety of projects to enrich the educational experience of country children. Under this program, itinerant music teachers are employed, mobile manual arts workshops are organised, funds are provided for the development of relevant curricula for country children, and the use of technology to offset isolation is investigated.71 Such projects, whilst benefitting all country and isolated students, will he of particular assistance to those who are gifted and talented.
6.57 Given the difficulties involved in trying to educate children, especially those of secondary school age, at home, it is not surprising that many families opt to send their children to boarding schools, hostels or to private board in the city despite the separation and expense this involves. The Commonwealth Government's Assistance to Isolated Children Scheme provides $23 million annually to help parents to meet these costs.72 Mrs Walsh, President of the Isolated Children's Parents Association (Western Australia), informed the Committee that the parents of isolated children are experiencing difficulty in meeting the gap between Federal and State assistance for their child's education and the increased costs of private board or boarding school. Mrs Walsh observed that many more children were doing secondary correspondence than before, thus putting additional pressure on the correspondence system.73
