Dutch-Moroccan Woman Learns She Is Gifted at 27 After Being Told She Wasn’t Suited for Academic Studies
At school, Meriëm Najjar sometimes deliberately left answers incomplete to avoid getting top marks. Today, this Dutch woman of Moroccan origin supports gifted children and helps schools identify them more effectively.
At the end of primary school in the Netherlands, Meriëm Najjar was advised to attend vmbo, a secondary-school track mainly geared toward vocational education. She nevertheless felt capable of pursuing more academic studies, but did not dare challenge her teacher’s recommendation.
When she started secondary school, a placement test showed that she could follow the havo track, which prepares students, among other things, for higher professional education. She was then placed in a mixed vmbo-havo class. After two years of hard work, she managed to move up to havo.
“That advice made me doubt myself enormously,” she told Dutch media outlet RTL Nieuws in a profile published in February 2025.
The young girl had grown up in a predominantly Christian village, where she was the only student in her class to wear a headscarf. Her good grades sometimes drew comments from her classmates. To avoid attracting attention, she says she deliberately left some answers incomplete during tests.
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It was not until she was 27 that Meriëm discovered she was gifted. The revelation helped her better understand how her mind worked and why she had struggled to find her place at school. Her first reaction was to wonder why no one had recognized her abilities when she was a child.
She had also changed her first name to fit in
Her school experience had also shaped her relationship with her origins. Aware of the difficulties her older brother faced finding work with an Arabic name, Meriëm had chosen to go by Mirjam. For years, those around her knew her by this Dutch name.
She eventually resumed using her original name at the end of 2024. Now a specialist in giftedness, she supports children, their parents and schools.
Her experience echoes the findings of a study by SCALIQ, based on 6 409 cognitive assessments in the Netherlands. At comparable intelligence levels, students with names classified as Arabic were placed, on average, half a level lower than those with European names. The study establishes this gap without identifying its precise causes.
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In her professional work, Meriëm meets children from bicultural families whose abilities have been underestimated. She works with families and teachers to improve the identification of these students and offer them appropriate support.
