At the turn of every year, we speak of resolutions, shaped by familiar ideas of self-improvement such as eating better, working harder, or being more disciplined. When the conversation turns to education, however, resolutions by students and other stakeholders are often framed on the basis of a narrow set of assumptions about what progress should look like, how learning should be assessed, where success should be visible, and how early choices ought to be made. Within our broader social ecosystem, these assumptions often translate into an unspoken script that prioritizes higher scores and better grades. The young students who are able to build clarity and capacity for faster specialization, are considered ahead of the pack. This creates pressures to decide and take a deep dive, long before children have had the time or space to understand their own interests and capabilities. This raises questions.
A major review published recently in the journal, Sciencestudied the developmental histories of more than 34,000 world-class performers across fields as varied as science, music, and sport. Drawing on longitudinal data from a group including Nobel Prize winners in the sciences, Olympic medalists, the world’s top chess players, and leading classical music composers, the findings challenge a widely held assumption. Early high performance is a weak predictor of exceptional achievement in adulthood, with nearly 90% of top youth performers not overlapping with those who later reach the highest levels. The analysis goes beyond statistical correlation and shows that many individuals who eventually excelled followed slower, less linear paths in their formative years. They explored multiple disciplines, accumulated diverse experiences, and specialized later than their peers. As the researchers note, early breadth appears to build learning capacity, adaptability, and resilience, all of which matter more as performance demands increase over time.
This pattern has important implications for how success is interpreted within our society. Early acceleration is often rewarded because it is visible and measurable, while gradual development can be mistaken for lack of potential. In an increasingly competitive social context, such misinterpretations are easy to make, even when intentions are supportive.
David Epstein in his book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a specialized worldcontrasts two archetypal sporting journeys. Tiger Woods represents early specialization, having been immersed in golf almost from infancy, with training structured around a single pursuit. Roger Federer represents a different model, spending his childhood engaged in a variety of sports, gravitating toward almost anything that involved a ball, including football, basketball, handball, and squash, often in informal settings rather than structured training environments. Federer later reflected that this broad exposure helped develop his overall athleticism and hand-eye coordination, long before he committed fully to tennis in his late teens. Epstein’s argument is not that early specialists cannot succeed, but in complex and rapidly evolving environments, he argues, generalists often thrive because they build transferable skills, adaptability, and better judgment.
This distinction matters for education because traditionally the approach to schooling increasingly mirrors the logic of early specialization. Children are encouraged, sometimes implicitly, to identify a singular strength early and organize their efforts around it.
Findings of the research published in Science and Epstein’s work suggest that this approach may be poorly suited to a world where creativity, transfer of knowledge, and adaptive thinking are essential. Their academic work points to an understanding that, in fact, allowing room for exploration for our young, inquisitive students does not imply absence of direction; it reflects an understanding that direction often emerges through experience.
India’s National Education Policy 2020 aligns with this evidence-based view. Its emphasis on multidisciplinary learning and flexibility recognizes that human development is neither uniform nor predictable. While policy can provide frameworks, the everyday choices made by families, schools, and communities ultimately shape how these ideas are lived.
Marks, examinations, and assessments will continue to play an important role. They provide structure and feedback within an educational journey. Their value, however, lies in guidance rather than finality. When treated as milestones instead of destinations, they support learning without constraining it.
Instead of single-mindedly searching for child prodigies in our midst, let us recognize the prodigy in each child, accepting that lasting capability is often built through exploration, time and the gradual unfolding of excellence. As parents, teachers, academicians and policy makers, can we resolve to imbibe an approach that balances ambition with patience?
Jayant Chaudhary is minister of State (I/C), ministry of skill development and entrepreneurship, and minister of State, education. The views expressed are personal
