Society should identify those children who have special talents and provide training for them at an early age to develop their talents

There is an ongoing debate on the effectiveness of an educational program that selects some children and gives them opportunities to nurture their talents. Some advocates might maintain that this sort of program is essential both for children and a nation. In fact, this course of educational program can broaden the horizon of those children by exposing them to an environment in which their talents can fully develop. Moreover, a nation would benefit from the innovations, inventions, and insights from these ingenuous children when they grow up. Nevertheless, considering the unexpected downsides of this policy that favors children with special talents, it would be more prudent to keep this sort of policy aside, giving all children the same opportunities to develop their talents with the help of government funding.

An educational program that selects few for additional special treatment could result in damaged self-worth among the other students. Instead, government should embrace a policy that recognizes and acknowledges the worthiness of every student. Under the strictly selective programs that the speaker advocates, the students who are selected by the bureaucrats might very well feel that they are superior to the others when it comes to intelligence and capability. On the other hand, those who are left out might well feel that they are not worthy enough, discrediting their possible potential of academic achievements altogether. An astute child psychologist would warn that both cases portend psychological problems later in their lives. The speaker’s contention would be modified with the example of German educational reform, which began in the 1950s. Since the end of the Second World War, the German governmnet has initiated an educational program which affirms every student’s individuality, avoiding investing excessive resources in the selected few. This approach has proved to be successful in that German students report a higher level of life satisfaction than students from countries whose governments favor few talented students.

Moreover, such policy would eventually breed or exacerbate socioeconomic inequality, both of which adversely affect the foundation of a democratic society. Under a program that allocates more resources and funds for elitist students, high-income parents tend to raise their children in ways that are advantageous for them to get into the special program run by the government. Clearly, this would in turn widen the gap between social members of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Any democratic society should abhor a policy that exacerbates this discrepancy on the ground that social members should be given equal opportunities regardless of their parental background—or lack thereof. Again, under an educational policy which emphasizes the rules of equality to young children, German educational reform has been successful in breeding students who value democratic values such as compassion and virtue—rather than competition and rivalry which stems from a system that worships so-called “genius.”

All in all, any government should not overstate the significance of a policy that values the elite students the most despite its own benefits. Considering that young children who are not given special opportunities might lose self-worth, and that such a program might worsen inequality among the members of society, an educational program should be designed to value all students regardless of their talent.