A Preamble

Hi,

First of all, I would like to thank you for visiting this website.

Quite a lot of people are still unaware of the existence of Pusat PERMATApintar Negara (PPpN) which has been operational since January 2011. This website is one of the ways we disseminate information about our activities to the public. This website contains some information about various programmes run by this centre. Do get in touch with us if you need additional information.

A study conducted by Tidwell (1980) found that there is at least one gifted and talented child in every 10,000 children. Today, in Malaysia there are 3.5 million children between the age of 9 and 15 years old, and if the findings of Tidwell’s work could be applied to this country, then we could generally assume that there are about 350,000 gifted and talented children in Malaysia.

Findings of research on gifted and talented children show that the majority of these children have educational needs that are different from other normal children. Although the current educational system was designed to fulfill the needs of the majority of school children, it does not necessarily fulfill the needs of many gifted and talented children. As a consequence, many of these students do not seem to able to stand out and are usually unable to perform well in national exams like UPSR, PMR and SPM; some have become school dropouts. For those who come from the well to do families, some have opted to study in other countries, where they are able to develop their potential, and are offered a much more enriching educational experiences.

All these children are a natural asset to this country and should be well managed so that they could contribute to the betterment of the nation,

Malaysia has a plan to develop an educational system that allows equal access and excellence that have been the dream of many. Equal access means that every student has access to the highest quality education, while excellence means the needs of every child to have the necessary opportunity to enable him/her to develop his/her learning potential further. Since each child goes through unique changes, a special learning opportunity that could fulfill various learning curves needs to be designed.

Malaysian government has developed PERMATApintar(TM) Programme in order to fulfill the needs of gifted and talented students. The programme was initially conceived by YABhg Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, wife of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, who has a keen interest in helping the students develop their potentials. She is one of the key persons who ensures the success of the PERMATApintar(TM) Programme ever since it was initially proposed. With her consent, the National University of Malaysia (UKM) was given the mandate to develop, implement and monitor the implementation of this programme which was officially launched on 3 April 2009. Besides being the Chairperson of the PERMATA Foundation, Datin Seri Rosmah is also the patron of PERMATApintar (TM) Programme.

Today, PERMATApintar(TM) UKM is the only centre of Excellence in Malaysia tasked with the responsible to identify gifted and talented children from all over Malaysia, and give them some opportunities to develop their talents and potentials. It is imperative to carry out these tasks as these children are our precious national assets. Failure to identify these children could results in Malaysia losing some of its invaluable work force, thinkers, scientists or technocrats either because they have become school dropout, or they have migrated to other countries that offer better educational experiences.

PERMATApintar(TM) currently runs four main programmes: 1) Talent Search and Management, 2) School Holiday Camp (PPCS), 3) PERMATApintar(TM) Educational Programme, and 4) ASASIpintar, a one year pre-university programme. At PERMATApintar(TM), students are trained not only to improve their academic performance; they are also given various educational experiences and exposures in order to produce well balanced individuals, individuals who attain excellent academic achievement and are able to put into practice the knowledge, particularly technical know-how/expertise and various experiences in order to contribute to the well being and prosperity of the country.

As a preparation to become a developed nation, Malaysia needs scientists, technocrats, thinkers, and nobel laureates who, we hope, will be able to help Malaysia face future challenges that are unforseeable by many members of the society today. May some graduates of PERMATApintar(TM) become those individuals.

Thank you.

Prof Dato Dr Noriah Mohd Ishak
Director