Developing and Validating a Strategic Plan for Gifted Education in Private Primary Schools

Abstract

Gifted education, defined as the schooling of students demonstrating some exceptional abilities, is relatively new in the Republic of Yemen; hence, it has been started in 2005 in five government schools located in three governorates. Therefore, this study aims to propose a strategic plan for developing gifted education in Private Primary Schools (PPS) in Hadhramout governorate; and to generate a consensus among experts on the proposed strategy. The study employed a mixed quantitative/qualitative approach and was conducted in two phases: qualitative and quantitative. In the first phase, data were collected through focus groups. While, in phase two, data were collected through questionnaires using the Fuzzy Delphi Method. A total of 9 private primary school principals and 23 experts in several specialisations were involved in this study. The results revealed that the proposed strategic plan contained seven domains covered 51 items. The seven items are Identification of Gifted Students IGS, Syllabus Materials for Gifted Students SMGS, Staff Development in Gifted Education SDGE, Assessment of Gifted Students Performance AGSP, Assessment of Services of Gifted Students ASGS, Strategic Planning for gifted Education SPGE and Implementation Policy for Gifted Education IPGE. Finally, the study recommended PPS to prioritise staff development to implement this strategy.