The IB system - as published in TOI - 10th Feb 2008

‘Most IB schools offer free education’

Anahita Mukherji I TNN

Mumbai: Despite the hype about International Baccalaureate schools, little is known about their curriculum and such schools function abroad. Indian businessmen have been quick to cash in on the IB tag by setting up expensive schools, but are students getting their money’s worth? TOI put these questions to International Baccalaureate Organisation director-general Jeffrey Beard in a telephone interview.
Q: IB schools in India are perceived as very costly and elitist. Do you have any plans to reduce the fee?
A: We don’t own or run schools, we authorise them to offer our programmes and they pay us a yearly fee, which is a very small part of their overall budget. A school is free to set their own fees. Our primary role is to ensure schools meet our criteria for authorisation, and we also train their teachers. We then monitor and periodically evaluate the school to ensure they are delivering the curriculum according to our standards.
Q: Some IB schools in Mumbai have either broken the law or provide poor infrastructure. Won’t such schools give IB a bad name? One in Mazgaon, for instance, runs out of premises meant for a municipal school. The municipality shut down a civic school, left the children high and dry and rented 16 rooms and a hall to an NGO that carried out illegal structural changes in the building and converted it into an IB school.
A: This, if true, is unfortunate. However, keep in mind that we do not run schools, we only authorise them to run our programmes. Ultimately, a school that does not uphold our ethical standards and aligns itself with our mission may end up being de-authorised. We do monitor each school and evaluate them every five years or so. We evaluate the standard of teaching in the schools and check whether they have incorporated the IB philosophy. Though we may not immediately be able to take action against a school, incidents such as this eventually catch up with a school.
Q: There’s another school at Kemps Corner that operates out of a few floors on top of a row of shops on the main road. There’s no playground. Some classes have only two or three children.
A: We have no knowledge of this and cannot comment. We authorise each school on the basis that they can meet our standards over time, which are principally aimed at what goes on in the classroom. Some schools start off with only a few IB students and more limited facilities. However, they grow and improve over time. Q: Are IB schools across the world generally very expensive and elite?
A: No, over half of the 2,200 IB schools in the world are state-run schools and not private schools. This means the school budget is funded by the
government and students avail of an IB education free of cost. Ninety-two per cent of IB schools in the United States are public (or state) schools, and 60% of IB schools in the United Kingdom are state-run. Q: Any idea why the IB in India is solely offered by elite private schools?
A: In the 1960s and 1970s, when the IB curriculum was first offered in the US and Europe, it was only in elite private schools. However, gradually,
as the movement spread and the schools grew in number, governments, too, felt it was a good curriculum and began supporting its offering in public schools. This helped universalise IB and increased the access to an IB education for those who could not afford a private school. In India, the government has not yet realised these benefits. However, about 40% of the Indian market comprises private schools that are very much interested in our programmes. Currently, there are around 40 IB schools in India. They compete for the best teachers and this has affected salary levels of these teachers which, perhaps, is a factor in the fee they charge. As more schools become IB-authorised, it should help cut the tuition fee these schools charge and make them more affordable. Remember, the fee a school pays to the IB is not at all related to the tuition fee they charge publicly. Q: Currently, schools in India say they charge a high fee for IB as it is a costly programme. Teachers have to fly overseas for training. Is there any way to cut the costs?
A: As more schools introduce the IB curriculum in India, we can expand our resources in the country and be able to offer more localised training for teachers. This will help bring down the costs. We’re also in the process of introducing online workshops to train teachers so they won’t need to travel. We also plan to allow universities that already offer a college degree for teachers to be authorised to do IB teacher-training. This will allow teachers to be directly employed in any IB School in the world instead of having to take additional workshops. We hope varsities like Mumbai University and Delhi University will be interested in this programme.
Q: How rapidly is IB growing in India?
A: In 2002, there were only seven schools in India. The number rose to 37 in 2007. In 2008, we expect to authorise even more so that there will be 61 by the year-end.
Q: The IB diploma is now recognised as the equivalent of the HSC (Std XII) by Mumbai University. But in the IB system, students are graded and not marked. So how can a college in India compare HSC marks and the IB grade? A: For India, we offer an additional service and convert the grades into equivalent marks for the universities’ benefit. Q: IB does not have a public examination till Std XII. Does India recognise a Middle Years Programme (MYP) certificate as the equivalent of Std X? A: No, India does not recognise the MYP as the Std-X equivalent. As IB gains in popularity, we want more people to be convinced about the MYP’s effectiveness and convince the Indian government to formally recognise it.
anahita.mukherji@timesgroup.com