‘I am horrified’: education expert condemns C4’s Child Genius

Have you been watching?

A writer and education expert has criticised Channel 4's programme Child Genius for exploiting kids. The current series of the show sees children between the ages of eight and 12 compete against each other in tense rounds of questioning in front of a live studio audience to be named Britain's cleverest child. Wendy Berliner, whose books include Great Minds and How to Grow Them, is joint CEO of the UK'S Education Media Centre. She told The Guardian that the show horrifies her "for same reason that I’m horrified by circuses, beauty pageants or anything that appears to exploit animals or children."

"These children have been drilled to perform, there’s no creativity in what these children are being asked to do. “Instead, they’re being put in a situation where they’re running out of the competition room in tears because they haven’t memorised an abstract and meaningless list as well as they’d like to have done.”

The pressure of the show has caused a number of contestants to crumble, including 11-year-old Joshua, who left the stage crying on Thursday night's episode when he didn't do as well as he had hoped in a task where he had to memorise a sequence of cards. He was asked to recall the sequence of two packs of cards but stumbled after ten and was knocked out of the competition. A number of other children were shown in tears during that episode after struggling with questions. The show also dealt with a cheating scandal during the week when one mum accused other parents of attempting to mouth answers to their children from the audience, though an adjudicator ruled that no cheating had taken place.