The second part of the interview aimed to identify principals’ views on the potential barriers that may prevent full access and participation of all members of society in gifted education programs. Apart from various positive practices, there was still an abundance of
challenges facing these schools in different areas. Especially in this part of the interview, most of the principals showed strong enthusiasm to discuss their school’s problems and needs as well as their hopes for the future. Research results were organized in the following way:
before enrolment and while studying in schools for gifted children.
4.4.1 Equity of access
Potential obstacles in admission procedures identified during the interviews were mostly similar with the problems of underrepresentation. After revealing the most common topical areas, I decided to group these issues into two sub-sections: rural students and students from low-socio economic status families.
Rural students
According to principals, difficulties in passing language exams, specifically in English, were barriers among applicants from rural areas. Since all the schools for gifted children are exposed to trilingual education system, knowledge of English, Russian, and Kazakh is considered to be essential in their future studies. Most principals admitted that poor English language ability is definitely one of the critical factors lowering the representation of students from remote regions and villages. Principal A showed a great interest in this and shared how he was able to make a difference and persuade other principals not to test learners’ English language abilities:
… We expect applicants from rural areas. They don’t know English well. If we have 100 schools, only few of them may teach English properly. Some can go to language courses.
And only thanks to this, these children may successfully pass the exam. Therefore, I was against this. If the skills of their native languages are good enough, teaching any other foreign languages will be easy for us...If I am not mistaken, it was a year ago… And other principals, governing bodies also agreed, a unanimous decision has been adopted in this respect.
By contrast, Principal 3 dismissed the idea of language barriers being problematic, putting forward the fact that it can be compensated by a high level of knowledge of
mathematics in the overall score: “And quite often we come across cases when a child has a low English score, but he/she enters our school”. He also added that under conditions of high competition compared to other schools they can afford this enforce language filter.
Another potential barrier mentioned by Principal 6 is related to test administration procedures. A city, where the exams are usually conducted, may be located so far from villages that not every rural child will have the opportunity to travel there to take the test.
Low socio-economic-status
Almost all respondents admitted the significance of deliberate preparation for the exams, which is offered through a number of special private courses. Principal 6 sees families with low-income as disadvantaged in this situation:
What we noticed is that students who are admitted are mostly from families who are able to allocate extra money for preparation. Since our tests are standardized, there are some educational centers that prepare grade 6 students on a paid basis. Families with low income cannot afford this amount of money.
By supporting this claim, other participants also disclosed the situation that
disadvantaged rural children cannot compete with their urban counterparts due to the lack of preparation resources, extra courses, books, and other needed educational materials. Principal 1 also indicated that it does not mean they are not smart, but because of the aforementioned problems, gifted and talented students from rural area and poorer backgrounds may miss opportunities and be left behind.
4.4.2 Equity of participation and service delivery
Maintaining equitable conditions for education after being enrolled in the schools for gifted children was more deliberately planned and given better attention. The schools employ various educational programs to improve learners’ academic skills and use differentiation strategies to ensure equity in the learning process. Moreover, schools regularly conduct
intellectual and sport competitions and offer a variety of extracurricular courses and activities to promote creativity and other skills, so students have the opportunity to fulfill their potential.
Yet there are some hurdles that need to be considered.
First of all, principals were in doubt whether they are able to teach students with special needs because there was no situation of admitting students with disabilities. There was only single case of a student with additional educational needs being admitted to a school for the gifted. Principal 4 discussed admitting a student with a speech disorder. Some meetings were held with the teachers of this child in order to discuss ways of supporting that student. In his opinion, there should not be an emphasis on the student’s problems, but on what he can do well; his strengths, motivation, and skills.
In addition to this, most study participants were concerned about school conditions, which do not meet the needs of students with special needs such as physical disabilities. There is a lack of special equipment including indoor and outdoor facilities. Wheeled mobility within the school buildings seems also challenging due to the lack of elevators and ramps. In spite of these, Principal 1 was hopeful these problems would be resolved very soon and pointed out that these struggles in the school infrastructure does not mean that he is against promoting inclusive education. Principal 5 expressed the similar opinion:
But if only technical aspects are taken into account, for example, ramps… In this regard, our school may not be ready at the moment. However, the school
infrastructure will be developed over time. For instance, now we have a project, armchairs for the disabled… While watching the news, I frequently hear complaints about including children with Down syndrome in ordinary classrooms.. In my opinion, it is normal. To accept these children, you should have psychological and pedagogical knowledge.
Only two school principals were confident that the school building fully meets the needs of everyone, even for those who may have special needs such as cerebral palsy, and any additional physical or emotional challenges. In spite of this, they have no practice of
admitting and teaching twice-exceptional students. To illustrate, Principal 3 claimed :
We have not worked with such children yet. There were no such cases. But as a school, we are ready to teach such children if they come to us. Technically, we are ready. As for the rest of the children, we are trying to provide any possible support. We have a
sufficiently large number of mechanisms for this. This includes psychological support, that is, there are psychological questionnaires, individual lessons, some elective courses and, clubs of interest.