In many parts of the world today, there are people who may have dropped out of mainstream learning due to factors that have no relationship with their natural intelligence. These are people who may have dropped out due to:

• Poverty leading to lack of food, shelter and fees
• Harsh learning environment that requires them to travel long distances in pursuit of education, and without adequate or appropriate learning resources
• Early and unexpected pregnancies, or sickness that hinders ability to learn effectively
• Family troubles, lack of guidance and associated behavioral issues
• Inability to understand some subjects e.g. Mathematics and Sciences hence falling out with teachers
• Having non-academic talent hence regarded as a academic failure e.g being good in sports but schools are concentrating in academics
• Natural learning challenges e.g timidity leading to panic in examinations, inability to memorize or cram notes effectively

These are the gifted adults that were never identified nor assessed at the onset.

Frustrated by education setups these people usually drop out of the mainstream education and begin to make a living through non-formal engagements. They would get into mechanics, small trading, enterprise developments, innovation rubrics e.g ability to repair TVs or radios in the villages without any formal education in electronics.

Some of them emerge with amazing success. Some end up being very good business magnets, others create innovations at village level, while others become the most trusted village leaders who would eventually win elections or get appointed by government as chiefs or community level administrators.

Due to the nature of their duties and level in society, these individuals may wish to access further education so that they can improve in their roles and at the same time gain respect for academic achievement.

Often they would approach established academic institutions who have set admission criteria that require passing examinations at levels they never reached. So they usually shy away from these institutions which usually send them to “bridging programmes” where they learn with children the age of their own.
The big questions are:

• How can a person who has built a company and employs graduates be treated as an academic failure?
• But how can such a person meet the intellectual academic demand required of a university student?
• Since we know the person has knowledge (perhaps better than even a graduate), then how can this knowledge work for him/her without the usual negative energies in our education systems e.g. having him/her start at very low levels and make him/her sit in the same class with his office juniors or children the age of his/her own?

The World Talent University provides “Talent Validation Services” to these gifted adults and enable them transfer credits due to member universities hence being placed on Talent Based Learning Models that match and support their talents.

They would later earn degrees (faster and cheaper since they get exemptions based on prior credits) from our member universities based on the credits obtained from their completed Talent Tasks.