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Details of the Applications

Nama PROF DR NOOR INAYAH YAAKUB

DEPUTY DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY

Address
PERFORMANCE N INNOVATION MONITORING
DIVISION,CENTRE FOR CORPORATE
PLANNING,UKM, 43650, BANGI, SELANGOR
MALAYSIA

Telephone 60389214650

Mobile Number 60193324036

Email Inayahyaakub@gmail.com

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Details of Project/Initiative Implementing Agency

Nama of the Organisation Pusat PERMATApintar Negara

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Address Pusat PERMATApintar Negara

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
43800 Bangi
Selangor Darul Ehsan

Name of the Head of the Assoc. Prof. Dr. Noriah Mohd Ishak
Organisation Director

Telephone (+603)-8921 7501/ 7502 / 7512

Mobile Number 017-604 9991

Email norwmu@hotmail.com

Website www.permatapintar.edu.com.my/

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Details of the Programme/Project/Initiative

Brief Description of the Programme/project/initiative:

Malaysia is committed to developing learning institution in which both equity and

excellence are persistent goals for each learner. Equity refers to the opportunity
of every learner to have supported access to the highest possible quality
education, while excellence refers to the need of every learner for opportunities
necessary to maximize his or her learning potential. Since change in every young
adolescent are rapid and uneven, these learning opportunities should be
designed to provide differentiated learning experiences that accommodate the
different learning curve of the diverse learners.

Gifted children have their special needs and the needs are different from the
average students. Their unique characteristics such as curious, always persistent
in pursuing their interests and questions, is perceptive of the environment,
critical of self and others, high sense of humor, sensitive to injustices on personal
and worldwide levels, always a leader in various areas, is not willing to accept
superficial statements, responses or evaluations, understand general principals
easily, often responds to the environment through media and means other than
print and writing, see relationships among seemingly diverse ideas, and generate
many ideas for a specific stimulus, requires a very challenging learning
environment.

To accommodate the Malaysian gifted students learning process, the Malaysian

government has developed a gifted students’ program known as PERMATApintar
Program. The idea for the gifted program was proposed by YAB Datin Seri
Rosmah Mansor, the Prime Minister’s wife who is passionate about helping
children’s develop and grow into their full potential. She has been the proponent
of the Malaysian gifted program since its inception. The program was launched in
3rd April 2009. With her full support, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) was
given the opportunity to develop, execute and monitor the program with YAB
Datin Seri as the patronage and chairperson of the PERMATApintar national
gifted committee.

For the first year, UKM receives seed money amounting to RM26 million to run its
first school holiday camp, build the infrastructure and went into consulting
agreement with Johns Hopkins University-Center for Talented Youth. To run the
program more efficiently, UKM developed a center known as PERMATApintar
National Gifted Centre (Pusat PERMATApintar Negara) and the center was in full
operation starting 1st January 2010. The center offers four programs: (a) Talent
Search and Management, (b) School Holiday Program, (c) PERMATApintar
Education Program and (d) ASASI Pre-University Program.

Each program was developed to search and provide the best learning
opportunities for Malaysian gifted students, regardless of socio-economic, and
demographic background. The talent search and management program was
developed to identify gifted and talented students all over Malaysia. The search
used two on-line tests, and students can have access to the tests by logging in to

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the website (www.permatapintar.edu.my). The tests have been conducted for

the last two years and approximately about 1 million children have tried and
1,000 children have been identified as gifted and talented. The tests are open for
students from the age group of nine to 15 years old. For the year 2010, the tests
were also opened for international students from India, Brunei, and Singapore.

Students who pass the two tests are invited to come to the centre’s School
Holiday Program, an enrichment program conducted by Pusat PERMATApintar
Negara, UKM together with Johns-Hopkins University-Centre for Talented Youth.
For this program, the students aged varies from nine to 15 years old. They are
offered above-aged level courses for instance: cryptology, bio technology, green
technology, robotics, inventions, fast-paced biology, theory of numbers etc. Such
courses challenge the students mental ability and endurance in learning new
knowledge. As of 2010, more than 900 Malaysian students have attended the
enrichment program. Eight international students have also participated in the
program in 2010.

The third program offered by the centre is the PERMATApintar Education

program. Entry to the program is based on merit, and students are required to sit
for two IQ (UKM1 and UKM2 test), and Maths and Science competency tests. This
program is a full time boarding program and students are required to stay in
campus for two years. The students are given program that encompass both
Malaysian main stream syllabus as well as international syllabus (SAT, O and A
levels). Students are also offered credit transfer courses based on American
College Board, UKM Faculty of Science and Technology first year syllabus , and
two languages offered by the Language Centre, Faculty of Social Science and
Humanities. At present, there are 116 students enrolled in the program and
about 50 % of the students come from low in-come group. The students are also
exposed to research project through a mentoring program and character building
activities which includes indoor and outdoor activities conducted by various
experts. Many success stories can be seen from the program which include
students participating and winning gold and bronze medals from various
international and national competitions.

The ASASIpintar program will commence in 2012, and preparation for enrolment
is now being conducted by the centre.

Why was the project started:

The idea for gifted and talented program in Malaysian was first mooted by the
Malaysian First Lady, YAB Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor with her interest on a boy
named Adi Putra who is precocious in Mathematics in 2007. The interest is akin
to the interest shown by Julian Stenley in Johns Hopkins University who worked
with a child of similar intellectual ability in Mathematics. A steering committee
was later developed to help build a learning module for the boy which includes
both compacting and accelerating program.

Another element that triggers the humble beginning is the lack of educational
provision for the gifted and talented in Malaysia. This is reflected in the
Malaysian educational policy that only ensures special education for the disable
children and not for the gifted and talented. For the last 5 decades, these special
children have been put in the main stream education that limit their real
potentials. Subsequently, some of these children left the country for greener

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pasture in others countries that offer gifted education program. A number of

these children were left unidentified and Malaysia is unable to tap their
potentials. With the support from the Malaysian government, in particular, the
Prime Minister’s Department, the committee examined the feasibility of
developing similar program for the rest of Malaysian gifted and talented
students. University Kebangsaan Malaysian was later nominated to build and
manage the program.

The program objectives are to:

a. Develop gifted students potential to become critical thinkers that is active

in innovation and creativity.
b. Provide holistic learning experience for gifted students to explore and
manage their curiosity.
c. Provide learning opportunities beyond school curriculum.
d. Provide social networking among gifted students from different
backgrounds.
e. Provide learning activities that will challenge the gifted students’ mental
capabilities.
f. Provide emotional and psychological support throughout the learning
experiences.
g. Provide platform for educators and society who are interested in providing
educational experience for gifted students to exchange information on
gifted and talented education.
h. Prepare future leaders for Malaysia who are technology savvy as well as
great innovators

Target Group:
The age group of 9 to 18 years old

Date from which the Project become operational:

15 April 2009

Is the project still operational:

Yes

10 points that make the programme/ project innovative:

1. The program used two innovative ideas of testing intellectual ability

among gifted and talented students using an on-line system. The tests are
known as UKM 1 and UKM2 which can be accessed by students from any
part of the world. Both tests were developed by Pusat PERMATApintar
Negara, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and have high reliability value of
0.97.
2. The IQ tests (UKM1 and UKM2) for talent identification and development
has been successfully tested in other countries (India, Singapore and
Brunei)
3. The talent search was able to help Malaysia identified gifted students not

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only from places within the city and suburban areas, but also remote areas
that is difficult to reach even by plane.
4. The school holiday program used curriculum that was developed by Johns-
Hopkins University-Center for Talented Youth. However, to suit the
curriculum to Malaysian gifted students’ learning needs, innovative ideas
for teaching that used local materials was introduced. Therefore, students
are able to learn by recognizing elements within their learning
environments and culture. An MoA was signed between Johns Hopkins
University-Center for Talented Youth and UKM to kick start the school
holiday program.
5. Pusat PERMATApintar UKM also worked with other research institutes
within and outside UKM to developed other courses that can be offered as
enrichment courses for the gifted students. Example of such courses are:
Green Technology, and Astronomy. Such collaboration enables the gifted
students to also work with local scientists in exploring advance knowledge
on specific areas.
6. The Education Program provide by Pusat PERMATApintar Negara, UKM
offers unique educational experiences for gifted and talented students
that combines high school syllabus, with selected first year university
syllabus.
7. The Education Program has 6 components: academic (which has 3
components: the National syllabus, International Syllabus, Credit Transfer
Syllibus), International Language and Communication, Scientific Research
and Publication, Portfolio Assessment, Co-curriculum, and Character
Building Program which emphasizes on healthy development of physical,
emotional, spiritual, intellectual and social.
8. Pusat PERMATApintar Negara, UKM also developed a 12 strands teaching
module that will help teachers teach gifted and talented students more
effectively. Each strand stresses on different elements of gifted education
which includes: history, characteristics, pedagogy, ICT etc. The training
also emphasizes on differentiated approach using collaborative
techniques.
9. The Centre also offers student mobility program for internationalization
purposes. Students are sent to Johns Hopkins University-Center for
Talented Youth for summer camp experiences, and participated in various
courses. Students are also sent overseas to participate in research
competition.
10.To increase students awareness in volunteerism, Pusat PERMATApintar
Negara developed a crisis intervention team. The team will provide
volunteering services to children’s hospital, old folks home, orphanage and
animal shelters. The first project for the team is to provide help and
support for children from an orphanage home that has recently
experienced lost of friends due to land slide.
11.To promote green technology, Pusat PERMATApintar Negara, UKM has
signed an MoA with LS (Kores) and Sentientwave Technology Sdn. Bhd. to
build a solar farm, and RFID system. Both solar farm and RFID system
provide learning platform for the gifted students to understand the green
technology concept and how it applies to their everyday living. The
students also collected data from the solar farm, and the data is used for
learning and publication.

List 5 achievements of the programme/ project?

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1. One of the most prominent achievement of the project is to bring industry

into learning community. Pusat PERMATApintar Negara was able to gain
support and commitment from various industries for instance LS (Korea),
Sentientwave Sdn Bhd (Malaysia) and Al-Bukhary Foundation (Malaysia). The
centre has also received support from the King of Saudi.
2. The project was able to reach out to more than 1,000,000 children from all
over Malaysia in less than three years using the on-line IQ tests
3. The project was able to identify and provide special learning experiences to
about 1,000 gifted and talented Malaysian and International students

4. The 3rd APEC Future Scientist Conference

Date : 11 April – 15 April 2011
Venue : National Taiwan Science Education Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
Awards : Gold medal - Amy Ng May Kay and Bronze medal - Nurul Amalina
Ramli

In Team Project Implementation, the students (from various countries) have

to design and build their own Carbon-Zero Eco House. Each groups, have to
prepare a PPT file for presentation and a miniature model with only supplied
material in a camp shop. Assessment criteria; creativity, practicality,
economical efficiency and presentation skill

5. Asian Gifted Student’s Fair held from 12‐18 April 2011

Name : Kevinraj Naggan A/L Sukumar
Award : Second Runner Up of The International Paintball
Championship
Conference : Asian Gifted Student’s Fair held from 12‐18 April 2011
Place : Sekolah Menengah Sains Kepala Batas, Malaysia

6. NST Spell‐It‐Right Challenge Secondary For The State Of Selangor

Amirul Fitri Bin Zainol Abidin has won the First Place In NST Spell‐It‐Right
Challenge Secondary For The State Of Selangor, Malaysia.

7. The program was able to develop a comprehensive teaching module in

gifted education for all teachers.

List the 5 key challenges faced while implementing the programme/project/

initiative and how they were overcome?

1. To build awareness among Malaysian on the importance of having gifted

education program for the gifted and talented students in Malaysia. This
was overcome by having the road shows and participating in fairs,
seminars and conferences.
2. To gain confidence from the public on the success on the program. The
centre overcome this by ensuring the success stories are shared by the
public through media.
3. Ensuring the infrastructure is build in time to be used by the program. To
overcome this, close monitoring was conducted while the project was
developing.
4. To reach out to the students using on-line tests. To overcome this, mobile
servers were used in remote areas.
5. To ensure the teachers are capable of teaching the gifted and talented
students using the modules developed by the centre. To overcome this,

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continuous trainings and immersion programs are provided for the

teachers.

List the 5 points how the program/project/initiative serve a model that can be
replicated or adapted by others?

1. The search and talent management program can be replicated by

educational institutions to identify gifted and talented students
2. Courses offered by the school holiday program can be emulated by others
to be offered as enrichment program
3. The teaching training modules can be replicated to allows educational
institutions in other countries to adjust the module according their
educational needs.
4. The holistic model used can be replicated with some changes that meets
the needs of the user
5. The comprehensive high school education program offered can also be
adapted by other countries and changes can be made to suit the country
gifted educational needs.

List 5 points to elaborate on the scalability of the programme/project/initiative:

1. At present, the program is conducted in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

Plans are also made to expand the program to other universities within
Malaysia
2. The program has offered international students from 3 countries. The
invitation to participate in the school holiday program will be expanded to
other countries especially Asian countries.
3. At present, teachers training program is confined to teachers teaching at
Pusat PERMATApintar Negara, UKM. Plans are also made to offer a
certification program to cater to all teachers from Malaysian and other
countries in gifted and talented education program.
4. The on-line tests will be opened not only to Malaysian children, but also to
children from the international community.
5. Johns-Hopkins University-Center for Talented Youth has also made an
offer for Pusat PERMATApintar Negara, UKM to offer management training
for the school holiday program to other countries especially the Asian
countries.

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