IB TO INTRODUCE A MORE HANDS-ON APPROACH

The Age 17 March 2008

Following the Rudd Government’s recent announcement to implement the Trade Training Centres in Schools Programme, The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) is considering offering Australian senior secondary students a vocational version of the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma.

In a bid to attract a more diverse group of students, the IBO is currently piloting a more ‘hands-on’ version of the IB with Wesley College. The ‘career-related’ pilot programme focuses on agricultural science and the mining industry. As well as taking traditional IB subjects, students will be able to ‘undertake studies on a cattle station in the Kimberley or in the mining business in the Fitzroy Valley, Western Australia’ from as early as next year.

Dr Helen Drennen, Wesley College’s Principal, believes that ‘This is the beginning of a new vocational direction for the IB which will enable students to study some of the diploma subjects, take a vocational pathway and have the international recognition’

IBO’s Australian representative, Mr Greg Valentine, has said that it is still ‘very early days in its development and, given that Australia has well-developed vocational programmes already, it will allow the IB to offer the modified core to a broader range of students to benefit from IB diploma philosophy, principals and practices’. The new ‘career-related’ diploma will also be more accessible to those students who would rather enter the workforce then get a tertiary education.

The Australian pilot follows the successful results from vocational IB pilot programmes run in America, Canada, Dubai, England, Finland and Hong Kong. The programmes offered students a vocational path into fashion design, marketing and hospitality. The IB Diploma, which is recognised by 3700 universities worldwide, is taught in 110 schools across Australia.

 

 

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