Los derechos de las personas con altas capacidades intelectuales. Análisis de necesidades educativas, alcance de los derechos y propuesta de Lege Ferenda

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is none other than to bring to light for the political authorities the existence of a gravely unjust and damaging situation for the gifted and talented people, since they are a clearly punished collective in the educational area, with overwhelming rates of academic failure or low academic performance, their personal development is negatively affected as well, which has an unmeasurable impact on later stages of life. There is no doubt that the educational development of the gifted and talented people (GaT) has presented, so far, important deficiencies, fact easier to determine in the academic stages previous to the university, both due to the number of students as well as, presumably, the extra attention given to the students for their early age. This should not be news for the GaT since the “MEFP” points out that 70% of the GaT students has low academic performance, while between 35% and 50% reach academic failure. It is undeniable, even though two decades passed since those statements came out, that the educational landscape remains unchanged, despite certain legal achievements as the inclusion of the GaT students in the category of students with specific educational needs or certain components of scholarships oriented to GaT, inter alia. Despite the previous facts, there is no proof of obligation from the educational administrations to identify GaT and according to the data obtained from the “MEFP”, during the 2018/2019 academic year only 35.494 GaT students were identified, out of a total of 8.217.662 students, which represents a mere 0,43%, far from the estimated 2% of GaT students; however, there are no studies at the university, even though experts estimate a rate of 1% of GaT students, which goes accordingly with the data about the academic failure in this segment of students obtained from the “MEFP”. Equally, no improvements have been observed in the measures destined to optimize de educational development of the GaT students, as well as concerning the implementation of specific curricular adaptations plans, a contrario sensu of the recommendations given by the European Economic and Social Committee, which appeared at a much later date then the implementation of the LOE (Ley Orgánica Educación). We do not intend to put blame or responsibility of this circumstance on the political powers, present or past, due to the fact that the lack of action to materialize la adequate measures for the correct educational development of this collective was simply a consequence of the generalized lack of knowledge of the society concerning the issue that affects us, plagued by prejudice and bias, falling into the false belief that the GaT is a synonym of high performance. Nevertheless, along with the increase of research and academic studies on the GaT and their educational needs, the political powers must be convinced to abandon the old passive positions and treat this problem, that affects close to 2% of the population, from a progressive point of view in the academic policies and in line with the European recommendations, which take into consideration curricular adaptations, flexibilization of the academic subjects and the student’s participation in the planning of their own learning process, among other issues. However, this party does not consider sufficient nor adequate that the legislative answer is seen reduced and limited to a purely academic field, because we cannot ignore that the academic needs are the precursors of other series of socioeconomic needs that the political powers cannot disregard. In addition, due to the fact that the application of these academic measures, which by legal imperative must be undertaken, must lead us to a situation in which this collective achieves academic and professional proficiencies of outstanding quality, the relegation of the opportune socioeconomic measures is a synonym of flight and loss of talent, this being the precise objective that the Spanish political authorities must avoid, and they should not only attempt to retain the national talent, but also to import the foreign talent that obtains no appropriate answer to their needs and aspirations in their places of origin.