IB awards more than 30,000 diplomas
International Baccalaureate, 9 July 2008: The IB announced today that more than 30,000 students worldwide were awarded their diplomas in the May 2008 examination session.
Assessment of the IB Diploma Programme is very rigorous. Students take written examinations, which are marked by a growing community of external examiners. Assessment is criterion based, which means student performance is measured against pre-specified criteria based on the aims and objectives of each subject curriculum. This approach, along with the combination of international awareness, compulsory curriculum breadth and depth makes assessment at the IB unique. The pass rate of the full diploma in 2008 is 78.3% and assessment director George Pook highlighted that “with little variation on this number each year, the examination process is not vulnerable to grade inflation”. The number of students opting for the IB Diploma Programme continues to increase. In 2007 more than 79,000 candidates registered for the Diploma Programme whilst 2008 saw a rise to 88,000.
In the year of its 40th anniversary, the IB can reflect on the enormous growth it has seen since the inception of the Diploma Programme in 1968. The founders of the IB Diploma Programme were a group of forward-thinking teachers who truly believed that education should encourage an understanding and appreciation of other cultures, languages and points of view. What began as a pilot programme for seven international schools became three programmes of education taught across more than 2,300 state and private schools worldwide. Today there are more than 600,000 students studying IB programmes across 128 countries.
The future growth of the IB shows no signs of slowing down. Director General Jeffrey Beard stated “we are building an infrastructure that will serve a predicted 10,000 IB World Schools teaching more than 2.5 million students by 2020”.
Contact
Contact: Jenan al-Haddad
E-mail: jenana@ibo.org
Telephone: +44 2920 547936
Fax: +44 2920 547807
