The future of millions of people and consequently, the future of societies and humanity is threatened by a great threat which is called wasted human resources. Perhaps Pasteur, Beethoven and Avicenna, Lavoisier and Einstein and millions of genius individuals and thinkers may have never been discovered and could not found a chance of being known due to various reasons such as poverty or social status, and other problems. So without being able to serve humanity, their talents are filly wasted. While, if a global mechanism exists to discover their talents in different countries and provide to them the right direction, during less than a generation, human society will face to a profound transformation and sustainable social justice will be formed as the basis of sustainable development of human resources. Therefore, the situation of the institution which organizes the affair of discovering and guiding talents was vacant at the level of the international community and its necessity has been felt. So in this plan, the establishment and development of such an organization has been suggested in the international context.
Keywords: talent identification, comparative advantage, sustainable justice, sustainable development, human resources
One of the main intentions of the UN Charter refers to the development and expansion of justice throughout the world. The definition of justice in all cultures is: “Putting everything and everyone in the right place”. Undoubtedly, the ideal vision of the United Nations which is a world full of justice and a mild world that itself is leading to sustainable development, not to be achieved unless by putting everyone in the right place or at least determining the place of people. However, this affair would not conflict with the liberty right of people therefore, people are able to freely recognize and select their positions. But in line with the principle of freedom of information and providing opportunities, one can offer individuals new opportunities according to their talents.
Human redemption is the ideal of all divine religions and humanist thoughts. The Promised Apocalypse in all religions and the Utopia in all intellectual schools refers to a flawless society based on justice. Equal opportunities, free choice of profession and freedom of human beings are making up the spirit of laws and all these will not be possible unless the concept of sustainable justice. The significant question refers to how to develop the justice and how to introduce people their opportunities and talents or people who need their special talent without endangering their freedom? Is the main basis of sustainable development something unless justice expansion namely providing opportunities to fit everyone in the right scientific, social or professional position? As the World Trade Organization considers countries owning comparative advantages and believes that investment of nations in their comparative advantages leads to growth, prosperity and development of the countries, individuals also enjoy personal comparative advantages and leading people to benefit from this opportunity causes the development of justice and ultimately the sustainable development of human society? And as a tool for sustainable development regardless of individuals’ interests and talents, can education be effective independently?
Howard Gardner believes that there are seven types of intelligence or talent that all men enjoy one or some forms of intelligence or talent mentioned in this seven-fold set and just enough to one recognizes his/her talent in order to fast progress in this context. So we can conclude that the entire Globe people are deserved to progress and sustainable development in one of the following fields and to achieve this important, first, they must be informed that in what context they enjoy comparative advantage. It is obvious that comparative advantage as one of the World Trade Organization’s keywords which has been applied at the macro and national levels could be the infrastructure of sustainable development in the field of human resources.
- Verbal–linguistic intelligence
- Visual–spatial intelligence
- Musical–rhythmic intelligence
- Bodily–kinesthetic intelligence
- Logical–mathematical intelligence
- Interpersonal intelligence
- Intrapersonal intelligence
Today, even the most tenacious opponents of the talent theory acknowledge that talent as a core element exists in forms of genetic or innate in some people with different intensities and though they believe that each person in any field can acquisitively progress and shine, but the inborn talent can always, up to 30%, pull of the man in the road of success. Just like a position that a runner, compared to others, is 10 to 30 steps closer to the finish line. This is traceable and measurable too, and at the common sense in addition to science, this is something frequently cited. So that we find somebody has the fat talent in a way that he/she becomes fatter due to no reason or talent of some diseases in some races and ethnicities or sports talents in certain fields, are established and proven. In acquisition of knowledge and skills, also the talent is traceable and sometimes called schema such as economic or detective schema. In some psychological schools, one can also looks for footprint of talent and talent identification through words such as job willingness or career enthusiasm.
In addition, to assess talent several tests have been designed some of which can be cited as follows:
- Differential Aptitude Tests (DAT)
- Mecanique Diagnostic aptitude test
- Johnson O’Connor diagnostic aptitude test
- Job Talent Test MBTI
- Flanagan test for the classification of talents
- Holland test
- Cattell and Raven intelligence test
- Emotional intelligence tests
Despite the fact that for more than a hundred years age, the man has realized the importance of talent tracking and the existence of comparative advantage in people and numerous organizations are involved in talent identification in the world, but this affair has never been administrated through an international consensus or a global institution or if some initiatives have been conducted in terms of internationalizing the identification, development and leading the talents, they have been very limited and brief.
While it seems that in line with the UN Charter and to promote social and international justice as well as sustainable development, United Nations must focus on development of talent identification, perhaps more than education or even before education. This is due to the fact that if people are trained in a field they enjoy a talent or advantage, not only the development of knowledge and human civilization will be more quickly but also they benefit from greater stability.
In the world, for more than sixty years, such organizations entitled Talent Assessment Center or another titles have been established and asses the talent of children since they are 3 years old. In this field, perhaps we can take into account the former Soviet Union due to its ruling communist idea. So that it was known that gymnasts or other athletes in addition to managers or even the former Soviet’s astronauts, were identified and trained since they were children. On this side of the Iron Curtain, the West Bloc countries have long strived to reach this goal and in football or even dance schools as well as military schools, since childhood, they are involved in identifying their potential audience so that in this field, tens of software, tests and standard methods have been designed as far as some of these tests are applied in modern methods of e-commerce such as CRM.
There are numerous such organizations in the world but, for example, the Children’s Talent Education Centre can be noted that with a Japanese origin, has branches all over the world or American Talent Agency which with an American origin, is active in the world or we can note the European versions such as British Talent or the University of Children in Germany located in Wuppertal. In Iran, the Institute for Children and Adolescents Study and Creativity by a registration number of 22779 is an institution for management services with the aim to discover 3 to 15 years old talented children and adolescents in the country then makes them flourished using the saturation method which is a non-educational based on research method, since 2007. World Talent Agency (WTA) is another talent identification organization which some talent identification centers in the world are its members.
Establishment of an independent international institution under supervision of the United Nations which through the standardization of the talent assessment tests helped by private or public organizations and institutions or NGO’s as a prerequisite to training and human development, helps countries and governments specify the relative advantages of the individuals and to enter the training phase, by psychological profiles and talent advantage of people, helps them in order to a huge volume of material and intellectual capital, and people’s time not to be wasted but also to be led to a direction which provided the greatest individual productivity. Of course, increased individual productivity not only leads to individual redemption but also in a larger shape, leads to the sustainable development of the county and consequently, the entire world. In current education systems or higher education systems especially in less developed countries, persons regardless of their talent and interests, only must obey a preset pattern in Scholastic Training and reach the acceptance score to obtain higher qualifications. In addition, if sometimes their families also have a financial ability, they pass their leisure time by learning other courses which in many cases, are not relevant to their talents at all and are merely based on social patterns of the region. While so many thinkers and scholars who could be of human capitals were among the individuals that due to being receiving wrong guides, the human society deprived of their services for ever.
For example just in Iran, annually, more than one million three hundred thousand students enter primary education which in average, enjoys a creativity coefficient of 67% but annually, only six hundred thousand students complete the secondary education which enjoys a creativity coefficient of 3%. This figure means an approximately 50% qualitative and 64% quantitative decline and if these statistics spread to the world, annually, over 240 million people lose the opportunity to develop their talents and billions of dollars spent in the education sector in addition to development costs will be destroyed in the world. While by discovering and directing talents, we can reduce at least half of this figure. However, history has proven that sometimes a talent can change the face of the entire world.
Goals
- Making purposeful the education as the development axis
- Creating and developing social justice
- Sustainable Development
- The development of international opportunities
- Globalization
- Creating an international model
- Discovery and development of individuals and entities’ comparative advantages
- The savings in human and financial and even sometimes international capital losses
- Providing solutions to governments and organizations
- Reduction of discrimination and poverty
First, one of UNTO or United Nation Talent Organization’s offices must be established with two employees and two experts in addition to a director. Then, thanks to the development of the Internet, all talent identification centers in the world are invited to by paying a determined membership fee, become a member of the new organization. Next, simultaneously with standardization of talent assessment tests, the people talents database to be prepared helped by NGOs and members.
The UNTO organization with recommendations to governments and designing the international conventions, on one hand, helps individuals know their status and comparative advantage and on the hand, helps legal entities create a revolution in human resources by selecting the top talents in their fields.
The author suggests that due to the extensive communications with many talent assessment centers and given that the major part of the organization’s activities are in electronic and online forms, therefore, the pilot plan to be implemented in one of the offices of the United Nations and then over a four-year period and if relative appropriate result were obtained, the plan to be raised as an organization.
Yours respectfully
Professor Hassan Kian
