With the changes happening in education at every corner of the world, we are also observing Indian parents getting more open to changing their mindsets related to the teaching and learning processes. They have started seeing the future from a different point of view now and in order to prepare their children for a successful life, we can feel their slow move away from the traditional learning methods towards different international curricula, amongst which one of the most popular is the International Baccalaureate program. IB and its 4 programmes involving learners aged 3 - 19 (Early Years PYP / PYP- Primary years programme, MYP – Middle years Programme, DP – Diploma Programme and CP – Career -related programme) have students in the heart of the teaching and learning processes: be that for the academic rigour or holistic personal development.

IB is more than just a teaching program: it aims to develop inquisitive, knowledgeable, and caring learners who are always motivated to explore, practice and apply their learning. IB curriculum successfully encourages young minds nurturing children’s potential and inspiring them to learn more and more about the world around them developing a futuristic outlook, enhancing their critical and creative thinking, ability to reflect and challenge themselves even further.  

India has always amazed the world as a hub of exceptional talents and change making leaders. It has been the global stage on which innovation and creativity were blossoming throughout the history of the world. All these, though, were not the result of just knowledge they had, but the skills and abilities they needed to make things possible. Thus, it could not be in any other way but to embrace such an educational system that values and promotes the same.

In today’s reality we can easily see how the world of industry is searching for and is recruiting majorly those professionals, who are not only very knowledgeable, but also compatibly skilful to withstand the market standards and expectations, who can easily fit into the role of a team player, collaborator, who can lead others effectively and ensure notable success, who have a great interpersonal equation at workplace and can firefight whenever a challenge rears their heads. Employers are increasingly opting for candidates who display empathy, are willing to take and manage risks, are curious and get inspired with meaningful perspectives and who are life-long learners.  

A question then rises: how to get such professionals into the job market?

Unlike traditional education systems in India, which have always been focused on knowledge gaining through tedious rote learning, IB curriculum focuses on the exploration of the world itself in all possible fields of life: arts, mathematics, languages, literature, individuals & societies etc. Due to its holistic nature, it opens the doors to some of the most reputed and top universities in the world for the students who have gone through such learning experiences. The big difference between CBSE & IB curriculum is that IB focusses on the overall personality of a learner, it helps to accurately identity every individual’s strengths and weaknesses, nurture their individual talents and traits, it supports them to find their right place in the future world of reality being a confident and useful member of the global society.

In PYP, IB program focuses on the emotional well-being of young learners. Besides inculcating and nurturing certain social and personal values like self-discipline, hard work, empathy etc, children also learn how to express their emotions and feelings while imbibing global perspectives.

In MYP, the curriculum helps learners to better identify their areas of interest and work upon them, while continuously gaining rigorous academic knowledge and developing wide range of skills and abilities. Due to the ongoing reflection on their learning and growth as well as the application of their knowledge and skills in the known and unknown contexts of the real life, all learners are able to make real-time connections clearly understanding what they learn, the reasons why they learn certain things, as well as how the learning can be applied at any point of time in their lives.

Some of the Advantages IB Curriculum Provides Include:

  • Rigorous Curriculum for a holistic development: Unlike traditional systems of education which are theory centric, IB programmes enhance students’ overall development with strong skill sets and ability to effectively apply those due to the practical, explorational and inquiry-based features of the teaching processes
  • Strong alignment with the overseas educational approach: The curriculum covers all the disciplinary blocks while still having certain core elements such as emotional wellbeing, service to community, international mindedness, certain personal attributes and attitudes lead every student’s personal growth and development
  • Perfect Balance: While other educational curricula and pedagogies rely on certain types of teaching and learning approaches, IB is a perfect blend of a wide variety integrating and implementing only the one/s that fit into the given context the best. It gives flexibility to have strong differentiation and to tailor the teaching to the individual needs of the student/subject, to the requirements of the given context within the frames of time and place.
  • An International Perspective: IB programme is nothing but a living system that grows and changes with every day – depending on the changes happening in the world itself. Offering a curriculum which is regularly reviewed and renewed to ensure the best quality of education is provided to growing generation, IB ensures that students get the global exposure of diverse backgrounds and cultures, develop global perspectives, and grow as global citizens.
  • Clear future prospective: with its rigour in the academic field, high standards and expectations in the skill development, its fully learner centric approach to teaching, the targeted learner profile attributes and the attitudes developed in a child since early childhood, IB programmes allow any IB graduate to find himself getting a long line of great opportunities from which the choice of the future, their life road depends on their own plans and wishes.

Having a choice and voice at every step of their learning concludes with a similar situation when moving to the next stage of their lives – making career choices and filling in the lines of professionals and experts. Being proven to be an effective and life changing education, IB was, is and will continue “supplying” the world with “dream” citizens and highly qualified professionals of the world!

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