In November 2018 Dr Narayan Desai and Dr Rohan Shetti from Indian Talent Centre visited different Talent Points from Hungary for an exchange of ideas and to see how other Talent Points operate. The visit was arranged by the colleagues of the European Talent Centre, which Centre is part of the European Talent Support Network, too.
The visits to the Talent Points were was coordinated by Csilla Fuszek, the director of the centre.
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The first visit was to György Bessenyei Secondary School and Dormitory – Kisvárda.
Here, there was a detailed interaction with the director of the school Bíró Gábor, who very kindly spared a lot of time and insights about the school administration. György Bessenyei Secondary School provides high-quality education for gifted students who have varied set of talents and coming from different backgrounds. The school also caters for students coming from underprivileged backgrounds. The school and its staff have brought about a very significant reform in education standard with staff evaluation process wherein educating the educator is addressed. This has rendered in a very high-quality standard education of this institution. Periodic staff evaluation has made education a very iterative and evolving process. Dr Desai also took a lecture about Indian philosophy Dr Shetti spoke about environmental topics with high school students. The school staff very warmly showed the school, the campus and students training facilities. Director Bíró Gábor is doing extensive work to address students from Roma community (an underprivileged ethnic minority all over Hungary) for making education easily available and motivating parents from Roma families to educate their children. It was a very enriching experience to visit this school and dormitory.
The second vist was to Nóra Ritók - Igazgyöngy Alapítvány (Real perl Foundation)- Berettyóújfalu:
Nóra Ritók, the founder of Real Pearl foundation works for the betterment of the underprivileged Roma community in Hajdú-Bihar County. Using art as a medium to create bridges between ethnic minorities and mainstream communities Nora uses art (painting) through an after-school academy to bring children from Roma communities together. Dr Desai and Dr Shetti visited her NGO and her one of her work sites in Told village. Her approach of art and creativity to break socio-cultural barriers has brought about a remarkable reform in the local Roma community. With her pioneering work, Nóra has started self-help groups in the community which now produce local handicrafts which include paintings, sauces and locally produced food products. With this initiative, she has been successful for motivating parents to educate children and find a livelihood. Local with products are avaible at the . Many paintings have received international awards. This experience was very key to understand how work with talent and giftedness in underprivileged communities has resulted in new coping and thriving mechanisms for societal uplifting. This was a very nice model to see how non–academic education and creativity can bring about change in society.
The 3rd visit to a school in Hejőkeresztúr:
170 km east of Budapest is the village of Hejőkeresztúr. Dr Desai and Dr Shetti from TMNP with Csilla Fuszek visited a school for underprivileged gifted students in Hejőkeresztúr. The special pedagogical program of the school was started by Dr K. Nagy Emese. As a director she was the pioneer in the institution to introduce the so called Complex Instruction Program (CIP) with the aim of educating students coming from low ses families many times from Roma communities in the area. Besides the CIP by using other various educational approaches students from this school rendered national and international excellence. Looking at the progress students from higher socio-economic status were also attracted to this school. Started as a single schoolprogram by Dr K. Nagy Emese is now is a benchmark for other schools for gifted students in Hungary. Her relentless efforts have caught the attention of the Hungarian education system and is now taken as a protocol for other intuitions. The educational program follows the baseline of complex instruction program designed initially in the US and then modified K. Nagy Emese and her colleagues. We saw examples of the instruction program by attending a Math class and History class. The approach had collective and individual work for students in a classroom. This enabled every student to identify his or her own role in group work as well as stimulated him to focus on individual work. The teaching pattern was very a novel approach which seemed to make learning experience much interactive and stimulating as compared to normal lecturing in class.
