Education Minister Prue Car said delivering high-potential and gifted education programs inside the doors of every local school would be her focus for the state’s beleaguered education system.
“This year we’ll be doing more to expand and strengthen the opportunities for students to meet their potential in our schools,” she told a SMH Schools Summit on Thursday.
Car said selective streams and opportunity classes were only available in half of the state’s public schools.
“To be able to say we are truly a world-class system, we need to deliver high potential and gifted education in every school, and for every community,” she said.
Under the proposal, schools would identify high-potential students across key domains including their intellectual, creative, social-emotional and physical abilities.
The expanded program would help with “delivering equity of opportunity for students, no matter their background”, Car said.
But the roll-out depended on addressing teacher shortages, she added.
A NSW Department of Education research review previously found gifted children comprised the top 10 per cent of students, but up to 40 per cent of that cohort were underachieving.
Without help to turn their promise into achievement, the students might never achieve their potential, it found.
The review said “specific support and learning experiences were required” for gifted children to achieve their potential.
Federal Education Minister Jason Clare said data showed an increasing disparity in classroom outcomes between well-off and disadvantaged students.
The average eight-year-old now reads at a level about a year ahead of an eight-year-old 15 years ago, but the gap between children from wealthy families and those from poorer backgrounds had got worse, he said.
“Fifteen years ago it was (a difference of) about a year of learning ... now it’s two,” Clare said.
“What I’m trying to do is help build a country where your chances in life don’t depend upon who your parents are or where you grow up or the colour of your skin.”
AAP
