RIYADH, 15 January — The first conference on GCC organizations for the gifted concluded here yesterday with a decision to set up a coordination office in the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States in Riyadh to monitor the programs of the various states for a coordinated approach.
The concluding session was chaired by Dr. Hamad Al-Baady, secretary-general of the King Abdul Aziz and His Companions Foundation for Gifted Persons, and attended, among others, by Dr. Fathi A. Jarwan, director general of the Center for Excellence in Education and president of Arab Council for the Gifted and Talented in Amman (Jordan), and 12 delegates from the Gulf states.
Speaking to Arab News after the concluding session, Dr. Al-Baady said the coordination bureau will liaise with various organizations for the gifted and facilitate exchange of information among the GCC member states.
To this end, the conference recommended the launch of a newsletter to keep the organizations posted with the activities of gifted persons.
Dr. Al-Baady said it was also decided to evolve uniform criteria for the evaluation of the gifted, so that those selected for the program could be streamed through a common enriched curricular program.
"We also agreed on the need for guidelines to help us in the task of targetting the gifted students. Further, we decided that there should be uniformity in preparing school curricula, teacher training schools and colleges, as well as accreditation of all programs for the gifted," Dr. Al-Baady said.
The conference recommended development of common testing tools for evaluating the gifted persons. The King Abdul Aziz Foundation for gifted persons and ABEGS were tasked with the responsibility to follow up on the implementation of the recommendations and report at the meeting to be hosted by Kuwait next year.
It was also decided to set up a screening center for verification of all claims to inventions. This was to safeguard against copyright violations and indemnity claims arising in the future.
Dr. Al Baady paid tributes to Muhammad Abdul Lateef Jameel for his efforts as head of the fund-raising committee. He said the Foundation has an SR150 million fund which is managed by Shaikh Saleh Kamel, chairman of Dallah Al-Baraka. The returns accruing from its investments are channeled into the Foundation's activities.
Asked about the approximate number of gifted students in the Kingdom, the secretary-general said they were believed to constitute one to two percent of the student population of 4.5 million.
He said these students would attend this year's three summer programs to be sponsored by the Saudi American Bank. Another program will be sponsored by Al-Riyadh newspaper to provide hands-on experience at Al-Riyadh and its other publications in Arabic and English.
Among the other summer programs for the gifted include two from Microsoft Arabia, and some other major programs from Saudi Aramco, SABIC and the National Commission for Wildlife Conservation and Development.
