Heads of IB Schools Meet in San Francisco
Heads of IB Schools Meet in San Francisco
Sunday, 14 October 2007
Having chaired a long but very important staff meeting on Wednesday afternoon, I went straight to the airport to take a long (but thankfully direct) 11 hour 45 minute flight to San Francisco. Given the strange dynamics of the International Date Line, I landed in San Francisco almost four hours earlier than the time when I had taken off from Hong Kong!
My purpose for going to San Francisco was to attend the biennial conference of the Heads of IB (International Baccalaureate) schools from around the world. Perhaps because these meetings are now held only once every two years (they were held annually until 1994), the time spent at these conferences is very precious, both for the valuable information gleaned and the opportunities to network with fellow Heads of IB schools.
The IB is enjoying spectacular growth at the moment. The number of students studying the IB is doubling every five years, which is an annual average compound growth rate of about 16% or 17%. In the past year, 70 new PYP (Primary Years Program) schools were added, together with 53 new MYP (Middle Years Program) schools and 150 new DP (Diploma Program) schools. That amounted to an increase of 67,000 students in a single year. This growth has been despite the IB’s policy of not advertising, and seems to be due to widespread word-of-mouth testimonies of the worth of the program combined with the growing need and demand for the program as the world flattens (to use Thomas Friedman’s imagery).
This rapid accelerating growth is not new. The IB began in 1968. It took 14 years (until 1982) to reach 100 schools. It then took 17 years (until 1999) to reach 1000 schools. At current growth rates, it is expected to take about 20 years to reach 10,000 schools (in 2020), at which time there will be 2.5 students studying the IB! If that growth continues, there will be 100,000 schools studying the IB by 2050. Ever since I first became involved in the IB (in 1990, when I introduced it into St Paul’s Grammar School in Sydney), people have been claiming that the IB is on a rapid growth path that will “soon” flatten out. To its credit, the IB now seems at last to understand that its accelerating growth rate is the norm, and it has begun the process of introducing a paradigm shift in an effort to cope with this growth.
Much of the IB’s strategic planning has been led by Jeff Beard, the man who became Director-General at the time of the previous IB Heads’ conference in Bangkok in 2005. I remember being somewhat underwhelmed by Jeff’s input in Bangkok, and in a public sense he has been almost invisible ever since. However, he has obviously been doing some great work behind the scenes, because the growth plan he outlined to the Heads in San Francisco was very impressive in its vision and scope, and was deservedly well received.
Jeff identified the aims of the IB in the coming years as being:
• to have the IB recognised as the world’s leader in K-12 education;
• to develop true international mindedness among everyone involved with the IB;
• to produce graduates who will make a positive difference in building a better world;
• to make the IB readily available to everyone with the desire to access it;
• to ensure greater quality and consistency across the different IB regions;
• to increase the IB’s recognition by universities and the general public; and
• to improve the organisation and culture, developing a ‘can do’ attitude of service.
Jeff Beard then outlined a seven point strategy to restructure the IB’s operations to achieve these aims:
• The IB has developed a new identity that minimises the separation between schools and the organisation, and highlights the core values of the IB program. An example of the new identity can be seen in a short video produced for the IB HERE.
• The IB is shifting its emphasis away from growth and towards strategies to improve access and raising overall quality, including moving into the area of teacher training. One example is the pilot teacher award scheme being pioneered jointly with the University of Melbourne, George Mason University and the University of Bath.
• The IB is investing more in systems to improve greater global consistency. One example is an increased emphasis on consistent authorisation and accreditation processes in different parts of the world. Another is a significant (and perhaps overdue) upgrading of the IB’s computing systems, which will have a major impact on examinations and assessment in the next few years. The computing changes will enable examination scripts to be scanned and distributed electronically, giving significant reductions in cost, time and environmental impact.
• The IB is making a much greater (some would say, long-overdue) effort to listen and pay attention to the pleas and requests of schools. The intention is that the IB should become a ‘listening organisation’. It was claimed that in a recent school satisfaction survey, 90% of schools expressed a high level of satisfaction with the IB’s services.
• The IB is simplifying its governance and management structures, based on “The Source”, a manual of 12 principles of governance produced by Board Source. Pleasingly, this restructuring will include input from Heads of IB schools at every level.
• The IB is improving its friend-raising and fundraising capabilities, including establishing a new formal network to link graduates, parents and friends. A Director-General’s Circle is being established for those who contribute at least US$10,000 per year.
If everything goes according to the plans outlined to Heads at this conference, the IB of the future will be an international community of parents, students, teachers and educators that will continue to grow rapidly, but will do so without many of the shortcomings that have caused some frustrations among many of us in recent years.
That has to be good news for the future leaders that the IB aims to form in the coming decades!