Gifted Education and Talent Support in Germany

Abstract

While the focus in Germany was initially on disabled children only, the promotion of gifted and talented children has become increasingly important. Different organisations and institutions, ranging from parents’ associations to foundations, offer a large variety of measures catering for the special demands of gifted and talented children, enabling the exchange 
of information on giftedness and the cooperation of different institutions. Talented children are also provided with access to scholarships as well as to special academies and competitions on different topics. Furthermore, educators and researches involved in the promotion  of giftedness can attend conferences as well as gaining qualifications as specialists in gifted education and talent support. In addition to these nationwide, extracurricular measures, the individual federal states offer  various acceleration and enrichment activities for children with high abilities at school. Overall, this leads to a diverse system of gifted education and talent support in Germany. It does, however, mean that Germany lacks a common national strategy of gifted education and talent support due to the lack of networking of the individual federal states. By exchanging ideas and information on their applied concepts of ability promotion, the federal states could benefit from each other’s expertise and experiences. Further improvement could be achieved if concepts of gifted education and talent support were to become an integral part of various discussions, such as those on inclusive education or on the results of international comparative studies (e.g., PISA, PIRLS or TIMSS).