Education researchers and economists throughout the world acknowledge the importance of identifying and developing individual talents in every society. Yet findings consistently indicate that the talents of young individuals generally go undetected. When individuals’ talents are detected, their societies often fail at helping them transform talents and strengths into high achievements and excellence. Individuals and societies pay a high price for such lost opportunities.
To prevent this from happening in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, the Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Award for Distinguished Academic Performance in Dubai has established a joint research project with the International Research Association for Talent Development and Excellence represented by Prof. Dr. Heidrun Stöger, Chair Professor for School Research, School Development, and Evaluation, Universität Regensburg (Germany), and Prof. Drs. Albert Ziegler, Chair Professor for Educational Psychology and Research on Excellence, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany).
The Dubai educational foundation will underwrite the collaboration with more than one million euros over the next three years. Professors Ziegler and Stöger will direct project teams at their universities, work closely with the Gifted Welfare Department’s Director Mariam Ali AlGhawi of the Hamdan Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum Award for Distinguished Academic Performance, and will consult with Prof. Dr. Abdullah Aljughaiman (King Faisal University, Al-Hassa), an internationally recognized education researcher.
The cooperation will develop, test, and introduce a Gifted Identification Kit for the United Arab Emirates and thereby serve as a state-of-the-art model for other education systems around the world on how to more effectively help young people capitalize on their gifts and strengths by transforming these into high achievements and excellence.
In addition to closely addressing the needs and traditions of UAE society, the UAE Gifted Identification Kit will decidedly reflect recent developments in giftedness research by redirecting the diagnostic focus towards learning environments, learning abilities, and motivation.
Contact
Daniel Patrick Balestrini
School Research, School Development, and Evaluation
Universität Regensburg
Tel.: +49 (0)941 943–3652
Daniel-Patrick.Balestrini(at)ur.de
