Abstract:

This Program was created by Mexico City’s Mayor, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon en 2007, in order to provide children with outstanding school grades with development opportunities to increase their artistic, cultural, intellectual and sports abilities.

Talented Children Program beneficiaries are children aged 6 through 15, with grades of 9 and 10 (in a scale of 10, the equivalent of A and A+), who live in Mexico City and study in this City as well.

These children are offered free classes on weekdays, after school, in fields such as art (painting, dance, music, writing), science (history, English, computer training, experiments) and sports (swimming, soccer, basketball and baseball). This Program includes visits to museums, lectures and workshops given by renowned personalities in each field and they get to participate in tournaments and various exhibits in Mexico City and abroad.

They also get $215 USD each year so their parents can pay for materials and transport fares to get to their classes.

This Program has benefited 120 000 students each year since 2007. That is, around 320 000 individual children.

The paper will explain how this Program was created, its theoretical premises; how it is administrated and what lessons have been learned and can be shared from the five years of it´s implementation, since it has been evaluated twice with quantity and quality methodologies.

Keywords:

Mexico City Government Program to promote children´s talent.