Academic programmes and certificates (IB)

The International Baccalaureate® (IB) fully realized its concept of an educational continuum, and of a coherent, broad-based international curriculum, with the introduction of the Primary Years Programme (PYP) in 1997.

The IB is now able to offer three programmes of international education and a career-related certificate, with them, the prospect of a continuous international educational experience from early childhood to pre-university age. While the IB now offers a sequence of three programmes—the PYP, the Middle Years Programme (MYP, introduced in 1994) and the Diploma Programme (DP, introduced in 1969)—each programme must continue to be self-contained, since the IB has no requirement for schools to offer more than one programme. However, they must also form an articulated sequence for those schools that teach all three programmes or any sequence of two.

With the development of a continuum of international education, it is intended that teachers, students and parents will be able to draw confidently on a recognizable common educational framework, a consistent structure of aims and values and an overarching concept of how to develop international-mindedness.

With the addition of the IB Career-related Certificate (IBCC) in 2010, the IB is expanding the number of ways that students can benefit from an IB education. This is a career-related qualification that is specifically designed to provide a flexible learning framework tailored by the school to meet the needs of students and the local community as well as the world beyond.

The IB learner profile will be at the heart of this common framework, as a clear and concise statement of the aims and values of the IB, and an embodiment of what the IB means by "international-mindedness".



Source: http://www.ibo.org/general/what.cfm