China's first program for gifted youngsters is to celebrate its 30th birthday on Friday in east China's Anhui Province.

The prodigy program, or the "Juvenile Class", was set up at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in 1978 at the suggestion of Yang Chen-ning and Lee Tsung-dao, two Nobel laureates in physics.

It was specially set up to train talented children as quickly as possible and shorten the period needed to produce top-class scientists.

Students in the program skipped years of primary and secondary school to enter college early -- mostly under 15 with the youngest being 11.

"It is rare for a university anywhere to set up a program to train gifted children in such a systematic and strict manner," said Chen Qing, a senior program official.

Most of the children in the program had continued to succeed academically and professionally.

More than 91 percent of the 1,000-plus graduates of the program went on to postgraduate studies at home or abroad, and 590 had received doctorates.

"What the program has achieved indicates that the 'Juvenile Class', although not the mainstream in China's higher education, is absolutely indispensable," said Chen.

"The program allows the students a longer time to make contributions to humanity," he added.

Some have raised doubts about the "prodigy program", saying that such competition at a young age is cruel and counterproductive.

"It is destructive enthusiasm since haste makes waste," a netizen commented.

But some students disagreed.

"Journalists always ask me why I chose to be involved into the program," said a graduate. "I always ask them what else should I do?"

He said when his peers were struggling with the seventh-grade curriculum, he had finished high school lessons by leafing through the textbooks.

"You want me to spend six years sitting in the classroom and going through the curriculum again?"

A number of prestigious universities in China have launched similar programs. All of them, however, abandoned the programs for different reasons.

Experts hold that the success of the program lies in its tailored curricula and unique ways of instruction, which have catered to the interests of children and fully exploited their potential.

Unlike other college students who concentrate on a specific field from their freshman year, the gifted youngsters do not choose a major until the third year, when they would choose the field that they are most interested in for further studies.

Most of the gifted students were chosen through recommendation by their parents, educational departments, news coverage and through contests.

(Xinhua News Agency March 19, 2008)