International Baccalaureate Keeps Growing

I recently read the 2017 International Baccalaureate (IB) yearbook and some statistics really jumped out at me. Heading into its 50th anniversary year in 2018, the IB is growing 11% a year. As of last September, there were 4,541 schools in 152 countries offering at least one of the four IB curricular programs. The IB infrastructure is challenged with this ever-increasing number of schools. I think the growth of the IB reflects the growth of the global economy and more parents want to give their children the skills and attitudes that aid their entry to this new workplace. More schools see the IB as a way to improve student learning and bring a higher level of rigor to their school.

In looking at the range of the over 4,500 schools world-wide, almost half of the schools are state (government) schools from the Americas region (47%), and surprisingly to me, there are more government schools (56%) than private schools (44%). The region with the most schools is Americas with 61% of the schools. The Osaka International School of Kwansei Gakuin is in the Asia-Pacific region which has 16% of the IB schools.

The IB offers four curricular programs, the Primary Years (elementary), Middle Years (middle/high school), Diploma (grades 11-12) and Career (grades 11-12). The most popular is the Diploma Programme, with 52% of the 5,889 programmes authorized by the IB.

OIS was the first school in the Japan/Taiwan/Korea region to offer the three main programmes (PYP/MYP/DP). We remain fully committed to the IB and feel it is the best curriculum out there for our students. We are looking forward to the 50th-anniversary celebrations of the IB.