Enabling holistic learning, the 'IB' way

V Pradeep Kumar explains the benefits of diverse subjects and unique learning systems that the IB syllabus offers

I was teaching undergraduate students of an American university in their India centre and also postgraduate students of an Indian institute. Teaching Indian and American students, often on the same day, was an experience in contrast. American students were active listeners, asking the right, insightful questions. You teach them a concept or illustrate an idea and there are hands raised and questions asked. Then a series of interconnected questions arrived until their final question was answered.

The experience of teaching Indian students was disappointing due to typical low interaction. The American students had done their schooling with the IB curriculum. Thinking and learning methods are indeed different across societies, but their education contributes to this more than anything else.

Over the last decade, several schools have come up in major cities, teaching international curriculums. These schools are established with a different set of principles, following a different curriculum compared to CBSE/ICSE/State boards.

What's in IB curriculum?

International Baccalaureate (IB) organisation is a global entity with over 5,000 schools worldwide, teaching what’s popularly known as the IB curriculum. The entry-level or Primary Years Programme (PYP) is for children in KG to 5th grade. The Middle Years Programme (MYP) is for children in 6th to 10th grade.

The Diploma Programme (DP) is for children in the 11th and 12th grades. There is also a Career-related Programme for students of 16-19 years. IB curriculum is designed with a unique, challenging and diverse education, designed to enable critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

What’s noteworthy in the PYP is it’s organised and framed by six transdisciplinary themes:

Who are we?

Where are we in place and time?

How do we express ourselves?

How does the world work?

How do we organise ourselves?

Sharing the planet

These transdisciplinary themes together provide children with authentic learning experiences that are not confined to the boundaries of traditional subjects.

The MYP programme builds on this and empowers students to inquire into a wide range of issues and ideas of significance locally, nationally and globally. The result is young people who are creative, critical and reflective thinkers.

The design of the DP is innovative and consists of six diverse subject groups:

Studies in language and literature
Language acquisition (French, Sanskrit, Hindi etc.)

Individuals and societies (Economics, History, Civics etc.)

Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology etc.)

Mathematics (Algebra, Trigonometry, Statistics, Arithmetic etc.)

The arts (Visual arts etc.)

In addition, students must complete three elements of the DP core: theory of knowledge; extended essay and creativity, activity, and service (CAS).

As a result of their engagement with diverse subjects, critical thinking and unique learning systems, IB students typically develop:

Time management skills and a strong sense of self-motivation

A keen interest in civic engagement
Notable academic ability

Strong research and writing skills

Critical thinking and questioning abilities

An international outlook

Teaching a group of active and interested students is a rewarding learning process that reinforces the belief that, “To teach is to learn”. Therefore universities worldwide prefer IB students for undergraduate and higher studies, given their holistic personalities.

Why is IB expensive?

Despite all the merits of IB, the costs are prohibitively expensive for middle-class families. Cost of qualified faculty, high faculty-student ratio, superior infrastructure, royalty fees etc., add up making it expensive as compared to other curricula.

However, the costs are similar to the IGCSE curriculum, another popular variant of the international curriculum offered by Cambridge International Examinations (CIE). Both IB and IGCSE are broad-based, holistic and tougher as compared to CBSE/ICSE.

IB and IGCSE are good for all students who can afford them. They make sense, especially to those who wish to go abroad for an undergraduate degree. Therefore, parents and students mustn’t look at the costs of an international curriculum in isolation but consider it as an investment to build a passionate career.

Career experts opine that while each profession requires dominant knowledge and skills to perform, one can perform better only with related skills and knowledge. Therefore, universities are combining two or more disciplines, like technology and liberal arts, to offer new programmes. This is the spirit of the New Educational Policy (NEP), under which university students can now select subjects of their interest from different disciplines.

The IB curriculum provides this opportunity for students to study diverse subjects while in the school itself, enabling them to identify and pursue their passion in the universities.

(The author is a management and career consultant)