International Baccalaureate (IB)
-- Excerpted from the IB website
IB is more than its three educational programmes. At our heart we are motivated by a mission to create a better world through education. We value our hard-earned reputation for quality, for high standards and for pedagogical leadership. We achieve our goals by working with partners and by actively involving our stakeholders, particularly teachers. We promote intercultural understanding and respect, not as an alternative to a sense of cultural and national identity, but as an essential part of life in the 21st century.
Mission Statement
The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment. These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.
Three programmes at a glance
The International Baccalaureate (IB) offers three programmes of international education for students aged 3 to 19. The IB is a recognized leader in the field of international education. It is a non-profit, mission-driven foundation that offers three challenging programmes for pupils aged 3 to 19.
Programme 1:
The Primary Years Programme (PYP) for pupils aged 3 to 12 focuses on the development of the whole child in the classroom and in the world outside.
Programme 2:
The Middle Years Programme (MYP) for students aged 11 to 16 provides a framework of academic challenge and life skills through embracing and transcending traditional school subjects.
Programme 3:
The Diploma Programme for students aged 16 to 19 is a demanding two-year curriculum that meets the needs of highly motivated students, and leads to a qualification that is recognized by leading universities around the world.
IB community theme
The IB community now includes more than 2000 schools, 500,000 students, teachers, parents, staff, examiners and other colleagues in more than 125 countries. In an effort to strengthen this large and growing community and the IB mission, which we share, the IB has initiated an exciting new project— the IB community theme.
The idea of a community theme was conceived in 2006 and the first theme: sharing our humanity, was officially launched in April 2007 at the annual general meeting.
The theme, which will last three years, is intended to serve as a focus for the IB and IB World Schools. We aim to capture the excellent initiatives that are already underway in many schools and encourage and inspire new activities, in and out of the classroom, around the following topics:
· Global poverty
· Education for all
· Peace and conflict
· Global infectious diseases
· Digital divide: uneven access to information and communication technologies
· Disasters and emergencies.
