Permatapintar Joined By International Students In Its All-Girls Summer Camp Programme

BANGI (Selangor, Malaysia), June 25 (Bernama) -- The Permatapintar programme has marked another milestone by organising an All-Girls Summer Camp participated by Saudi Arabian and Indonesian students at its centre in National University of Malaysia (UKM) here. In the three-week programme beginning Monday, 20 students from the King Abdul Aziz and His Companions Foundation for Giftedness and Creativity (Mawhiba) Saudi Arabia will join 30 Malaysian students and two Indonesian students to attend three courses. The courses are Probability and Game Theory, Cryptology and Biotechnology. The Malaysian prime minister's wife, Rosmah Mansor (centre), who is also patron of the Permatapintar programme, said the collaborative effort would have positive impact on gifted students from different countries. Expressing hope it would promote the best education for the students, she said: "We will also provide these students with an all-encompassing experience which includes an expose of Malaysia's heritage and culture, sports, academic visits, spiritual discussion and not forgetting, exploring the beauty of Malaysia's sights and scenes." Opening the camp here Sunday, Rosmah also hoped the camp would be the beginning of further collaboration between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia in promoting gifted education for the future generation. She said the programme would also be promoted to other countries, adding that she was looking forward to collaboration with them. The Permatapintar programme began in 2009, with an annual enrichment camp called School Holiday Camp, which was developed in collaboration with the John Hopkins University Centre for Talented Youth. It offers grade level courses to gifted children between the ages of nine and 15, and has been offered to more than 1,500 students from Malaysia and other countries, including Singapore, Brunei, Oman and India. The Permatapintar High School programme, on the other hand, began in January, last year, with the first entrance of 128 gifted students who were offered syllabus from the National Curriculum and above grade level curriculum, comprising courses in Linear Algebra, Calculus, French and Japanese. Meanwhile, Mawhiba deputy secretary-general (Assistant for Female Affairs) Dr Amal Al-Hazzaa said they were very excited to start the programme and hoped the collaboration and partnership to foster and nurture gifted children would be continued. "Every year, we have students participating in 20 different programme around the world, (including) USA, Canada, United Kingdom and Ireland, and this year, we are very happy that Malaysia is part of it," she said. (photoBERNAMA) MALAYSIA