Danai Pathomvanich
Mar 1, 2015
One of Path Foundation’s main goals is helping to educate gifted children, without the necessary means, achieve their full potential.
We realize that merely providing these gifted children with scholarships to attend the best educational institutions will not suffice.
Path Foundation’s goal is to provide these gifted children and their families a holistic educational opportunity including critical success factors such as living stipends for both child and family and social and educational nurturing throughout the whole educational process.
Disadvantaged kids begin losing out early
A recent Sutton Trust study in England showed that able young people from disadvantaged backgrounds lose out at every stage of the education system.
“By the age of five, the poorest children are already 19 months behind the richest peers in how ready they are for school.”
The report noted that this gap is cumulative: those who are shown to be the bright in national tests aged 11 are barely half as likely as their more advantage classmates to obtain the necessary education to enter a good university.
Success factors
The study identified a number of success factors that significantly increased the chances of bright but disadvantaged pupils have of gaining better results.
Students that attended pre-schools-especially if it was a high-quality school generally attained higher academic results.
“They also achieved better grades at aged 18 if they had a good home learning environment in the early years followed up by academic enrichment activities at home, such as going on trips to museums and galleries, and reading for pleasure.”
Academic achievement was also increased if the students had attended an academically effective primary school and a high-quality secondary school.
“Those who had positive relationships with teachers and regular feedback on their work and learning did better.”
Independent study important
Students that obtained daily homework habits in secondary school were also shown by the study to obtain higher results.
The study concluded that a combination of good schools and pre-schools, the right home learning environment and supportive teachers ready to monitor progress and provide good feedback can all ensure that bright but disadvantaged students are more likely to gain the kind of education needed for a good university education.
Cultural activities important
Gallery and museum trips can help with ‘cultural enrichment’.
The study recommended gifted but disadvantaged children would benefit greatly from subsidized educational trips and out of school study trips that could also encourage reading for pleasure.
“Schools should also provide more opportunities for able students to undertake academic enrichment activities when they are not available at home.
These programs should be carefully structured so that progress can be effectively monitored.
Foundation’s goal
Path Foundation believes that all bright but disadvantaged children should have more opportunities to go to the best schools – and all children, regardless of financial status, should have access to good-quality pre-school settings with qualified staff.
A critical Foundation goal will be to develop programs that identify gifted children in Thailand that don’t have the means to achieve their full potential.
With private sector education institutions, donors and other interested educators’ cooperation, the Foundation intends to develop of a strong nurturing infrastructure and specific programs that will allow these gifted children to achieve their full potential.
We strongly believe that learning experiences affect young people’s chances of academic success from the age of three to 18 and an appropriately constructed educational infrastructure will help mitigate the adverse effects of disadvantage.
Most importantly, it will greatly contribute to the advancement of equality and contribute to the country’s sustainability.
