NTC is the abbreviation for Nikola Tesla Center, Mensa Department for the Gifted. The founder of the Center and the author of the NTC learning system is Dr. Ranko Rajović, long-time president of the Gifted Youth Committee of Mensa International and UNICEF’s collaborator on the project of early stimulation of intellectual development. He is the author of the NTC learning system, an innovative program that helps children reach their biological potential to the greatest extent possible, which was initially aimed at recognizing and identifying gifted children and encouraging their biological potential. 

The basic principle of this program is that intelligence depends on the number of synapses (connections between nerve cells), and not on the number of nerve cells (neurons) that are inherited from parents. When a child is born, they have a hundred billion neurons, and only later does the connection of these neurons begin, which is the biggest stimulus for the development of intelligence. Thus, we conclude that intelligence is not entirely hereditary, but the capacity (potential) from parents is hereditary, and neurons represent this potential. Also, we can influence the development of intelligence. It has been scientifically proven that the most important period for the formation of connections in the brain (synaptogenesis) is in the period from birth to the age of seven, and that, in this period, children adopt complex processes more easily (acquiring their own language, acquiring a foreign language, learning quickly, remembering easily), and therefore, it is extremely important to create programs that develop children’s potential. The NTC program encourages the process of thinking and solving tasks independently, thus developing self-confidence and a positive self-image. NTC methods are like a game, and children develop thought processes of classification, and serialization, they develop focus and creativity, all of which occurs imperceptibly. Children from EU countries achieve below-average results on PISA tests, unlike children from Asian countries, so the EU emphasized the importance of achieving functional (useful) knowledge, and an important period for the development of such knowledge is the period of early childhood.

Program organizers: Educators of the kindergarten “Mali istraživač”