Some 50-odd students of classes 8 and 9 listen to quotient relations in a class on trigonometry at Chala Government High School just before lunchtime on Tuesday. Trigonometry though is part of the class X syllabus. But these younger children are being given a brief introduction to the topic as part of the ‘Gifted Children’ project of the General Education Department.
Fifty-one students from 32 schools in Thiruvananthapuram educational district, who secured above 80% in the upper school scholarship (USS) examination conducted by the department, have been enrolled into the Gifted Children programme.
The programme has been continuing for many years, but this year school teachers have been made conveners to ensure better coordination, instead of entrusting the conduct of the programme to an institution of higher education. The four coordinators are Jose D. Sujeev, Ajayakumar B., Sreekumar T., and Jyothis P.S.
Interactions
Instead of classroom learning, children understand physics and chemistry, mathematics, flora and fauna, history, juvenile delinquency, and traffic laws through visits to various institutions and interactions with subject experts. They have been to the Napier Museum, the zoo, Kerala State Science and Technology Museum, biodiversity museum, Keralam – Museum of History and Heritage, Tesla science park, and so on.
Botanic garden
On Wednesday, they are heading to the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute at Palode. Hrudayesh R. Krishnan, a class 9 student of St. Thomas Higher Secondary School, says the sessions are interesting. “In science it is not just theory; we are explained experiments so that we understand them and our concepts are firmed up. ”
Thamanna Hari, a student of the same school, says unlike other programmes, Gifted Children takes into account what children of her age group would like and be interested in. On Tuesday, after the classes, the students were presented with books totalling ₹65,000.