The International Baccalaureate (IB) program was first established in 1968 in Switzerland.  It provides an international (147 countries) alternative schooling curriculum.

The final stage of the education, the IB Diploma, is accepted by almost every major university in the world (every university in Australia for example) for university entrance – you can use the search function here to check for your country and particular universities.

IB offers programs for students from the age of 3 to 19.  The programs offered are academically rigorous, but placed within a strong mission of creating globally-minded life-long learners.  The official missions statement for IB is that:

“The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.

To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.

These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.”

This approach has apparently led to it not being as favoured in the U.S. as it is elsewhere in the world, due to complaints that it does not focus enough on America and prefers global-thinkers over national thinkers and that it is Marxist etc etc (although, despite this, around a third of IB schools are in the U.S.).

Anyway, my intent here is not to list the pros and cons of IB – you should form your own views on that – instead, for those who may be interested, Pamoja Education (strongly partnered with IB) is now offering an online IB Diploma (the final couple of years schooling, and only open to children over the age of 16).

This is currently still being trialed and so, I think, could provide even more care and attention than may perhaps occur if it was already widely rolled-out.

For those interested in pursuing a path like this the IB offers an extremely viable alternative to the Advanced Placement (AP) system that is currently gaining favour for university entrance.

Finally, of potential interest to some of you, IB now also offers the IB Career-related Certificate, which although it has some academics, also allows kids the chance to pick up career related skills in a more flexible way.  Although obviously good for those wanting to pursue a trade, it is not only aimed at this and people can also apply university off the back of this – just with more career knowledge.  It sounds like a fantastic option and you can start here in having a look at it.