Welcome to the May 2010 of the IB Americas eNewsletter
Dear Educators,
Welcome to the May edition of the IB Americas enewsletter.
I would like to take this opportunity to update you on the exciting work the Americas region has undertaken over the past year to enhance our ability to meet the needs of interested, candidate and authorized schools.
The Americas Global Centre, scheduled to open this August, will be the location of the IB’s School Division, which will be the activity hub for the regional office, global school services, professional development, research and university and government recognition at the IB.
The mission of the Schools Division is “to provide excellent service, enabling an ever-expanding number of schools to benefit fully from IB programmes”.
One of our main pathways towards achieving this mission is to align practices across the regions and globally. I am proud to announce that much of this work is underway and nearing completion, including:
- Establishment of global centres to bring the IB closer to schools (Americas 2010, Africa, Europe, Middle East 2011, Asia Pacific 2012)
- Alignment of authorization and evaluation standards regionally and globally
- Expansion of teacher professional development options, both offline and online
- Launch of the Diploma Programme online with a new partnership and expansion of courses
- Launch of the IB Career-related Certificate (IBCC), a two-year academic qualification designed to support and complement career-related courses, as a pilot with 11 schools in the US in 2010, with a plan to go mainstream by 2012
We hope you find that these new endeavours result in increased excellence in the day-to-day service you receive from IB Americas and our colleagues around the globe. If you have ideas, concerns or general feedback on the Schools Division, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at iba.director@ibo.org.
Warm Regards,
Drew Deutsch
IB Americas Director
More stories
