Centre for the Talented Youth of Ireland

The Centre for the Talented Youth of Ireland (CTYI) is a youth programme for students between the ages of six and sixteen of high academic ability (generally scoring at the 95th percentile on assessment tests for 6-13 year olds and 97th percentile for 12-16 year olds) in Ireland.

There are sibling projects around the world, most notably the CTY programme at Johns Hopkins University, the original model for CTYI. CTY students are eligible to participate in CTYI's summer sessions for older students.

CTYI was founded in 1992 and is based at Dublin City University in Glasnevin, Dublin 9. Colm O'Reilly has been its director since 2005. The centre offers various courses for gifted students as well as conducting research and promoting the needs of the talented in Ireland.

Summer Courses
Summer courses are available for 6-7-year-olds and 8-13-year-olds (one-week sessions) at DCU and at other colleges and institutes of technology around Ireland. These students normally study two related subjects in either the morning or the afternoon session.

The summer programme for older students (12-16-year-olds) runs only at DCU. Two sessions of three weeks each run each summer, usually from mid-June until the end of July or early August. Demand in recent years means that eligible students may only attend one session each year.

Some of the students at the summer programme come from overseas, mostly from the United States. Owing to the intensive nature of the programme, most of the 250-300 students who attend each session are residential, living in college accommodation for the duration of the course.

Weekdays in the summer programme are highly structured. Classes run from 9am to 3pm, with an hour's break for lunch. Activities take place from 3.15pm to 5pm, supervised by the residential assistants (RAs). Between 5pm and 7pm students have dinner and are required to attend a meeting with their RA group. 7pm to 9pm is taken up by the study period, which is supervised by the teaching assistant. Social hour takes place between 9pm and 10pm, with lights-out at 10.30pm. On weekends, social activities such as discos, shopping trips, visits to the cinema, excursions to various interesting sights in Ireland, talent shows, casino nights and so on are organised.

Students on the older students programme study one subject intensively over three weeks. The courses on offer tend to cover material that is at first-year university level or its equivalent, and involve subjects not taught (or widely taught) for the Leaving Certificate. In 2006, the following courses were offered: Archaeology, Biomedical Diagnostics, Celtic Studies, Computer Applications, Corporate Business, Criminology, Drama, Electronic Engineering, Engineering,Entrepreneurship, Game Theory, Innovation, International History, International Relations, Japanese Language & Culture, Journalism, Legal Studies, Marine Biology, Modern Mathematics, Philosophy, Physiotherapy, Psychology, Science of Tomorrow, Speculative Fiction Writing, Theoretical Physics, Writing for Life, Zoology.

Saturday Courses
Saturday courses are offered at various colleges and institutes of technology around Ireland throughout the year. There are courses for both the 6-7 age group and the 8-13 group. Some centres also run classes on Wednesday afternoons.

Correspondence Courses
The centre runs correspondence courses throughout the year for 12-16-year-olds and also for Transition Year students who do not have to fulfil any aptitude test requirements. Courses include Creative Writing/Writing By Mail, Journalism, Psychology, Philosophy and Legal Studies.

Discovery Days
These are once-off days at DCU, usually Saturdays, which feature a lecture or series of lectures on a particular topic of interest, e.g. "Celebrity Obsession".