I REFER to Ms Heng Chay Hiang's letter on Monday, 'Gifted scheme too early to spot talent'.

She states that families that can afford tuition send their children to lessons that will help them get into the Gifted Education Programme (GEP). She seems to think the GEP is inadequate in that 'genuinely gifted students whose parents cannot afford external help will not be spotted and developed'. Let me share my own experience with tuition and these 'gifted coaching programmes'.

The only tuition or enrichment classes I ever attended were in Primary 5 and 6. From ages six to nine, I had no external help with my studies. I do not regret it: I believe that not having tuition gave me a far happier childhood than many of my peers. In short, I was a normal student - generally all right, but the occasional Bs and Cs meant I was nowhere near the top of the class. Yet I got past both rounds of selection tests to find myself in the GEP.

By the time my brother was in Primary 3, however, the Singaporean mentality had finally caught up with my parents. He was sent for costly lessons that promised to get children into the GEP. He did booklets full of IQ test-type questions and was trained to field the various types of questions that would probably come out in the test. He was far more prepared than I was at that age. Yet he did not get into the GEP.

Ms Heng also seems to think that girls are at an advantage in Primary 3, as they are 'generally academically more able than boys in English'. So why are most students in the GEP boys? In my school's GEP, boys outnumber girls three to one. My friends from other GEP centres have reported similar ratios in their primary schools. When I return to visit my primary school, I see the same scenario in the gifted classes. If boys were really less academically able, in English or otherwise, we would see far more girls in the programme.

Jessica Yang Jie (Ms)

This article was first published in The Straits Times.