Compare the IB to your country's 'own' educational system

[genius wannabe]

I'm from Alberta, Canada.

I am starting IB this September so I am not entirely sure how the regular curriculum and IB curriculum compare. According to the brief talks I've had with IB teachers and the IB coordinator, the curriculums are fairly similar but IB goes more in depth for most subjects. IB is definitely a lot harder than taking regular courses, at least at my school.

In Alberta, the difference between IB and the Regular courses vary depending on the subject. Biology HL is very similar to Bio 20/30, depending on what options your teacher chooses. If your teacher teaches the IB options that happen to match the regular program, the curriculum is 90% the same. Math SL seems to be mostly similar to Math 20/30/31, just the addition of two extraneous units.

English is quite a bit different, both because of the addition of WL works (which regular classes will never, ever study) and the different style of work that is assessed. However, IB History is vastly superior to Social 20/30, mostly because the Social curriculum in Alberta is the absolute worse out of any course taught in the province, except maybe CALM. IB French is also much better than regular French because it assesses speaking and listening in addition to writing and reading, while 90% of the regular curriculum is composed of the latter half.

I suppose IB is more difficult in that the expectations are higher, but shouldn't that be a given? And the most stressed students are the ones that procrastinated (which, I admit, is basically all of us.)

Yeah, Math SL is pretty much the same with the Alberta curriculum. Bio and Physics HL is similar but Chemistry is kind of both ways. Some parts IB go in more detail(organic) and sometimes Alberta goes in more detail(equilibrium+acid base). History is kind of the same but alberta focus a little more on the ideologies.

I think the expectations for writing in History differ greatly between IB and Alberta Ed .. like for the AB diploma the essay is far easier and you get far more time to do the same! We had to learn an entirely new style of writing to tackle IB style questions, and that took my class a lot of time to retrain ourselves :\

And for English, my teacher says Ab Ed has better testing etc, but I really don't care for English so I can't say much about that ...

But I really like that IB has so much choice in all of the subjects' exams. You're not completely screwed if you don't know a certain topic, unlike AB Ed where you need to be really good at everything you've learned in the semester. That being said, the IB workload is more than the 'regular' curriculum, and you definitely need to work harder ...

[Dennis Cowfish]

no respect for ib here in canada

regular program is so much easier to get a... say 96% average and get a ton of scholarship, whereas in ib, you actually have to work HARD for it and you might not get as much $$

[miamonique]

IB is a lot harder than the regular Norwegian education system.

Basically, all we did before starting the IB was goofing around in class and then study hard a few days before tests.

Here the entire grade is based on the average of several small tests, and approximately one exam each year.

[Proletariat]

no respect for ib here in canada

regular program is so much easier to get a... say 96% average and get a ton of scholarship, whereas in ib, you actually have to work HARD for it and you might not get as much $

Canada's the second-biggest country for the IBO in terms of enrollment, so there's an awful lot of people who would probably disagree with the notion that there's "no respect for IB here."

Besides, every school I know in Alberta that offers IB does it concurrently with the regular high school curriculum, so students should be graduating with both a regular provincial mark as well as an IB mark. Since teachers also use IB assignments for provincial grading to save time (because, hey, they're only human) they tend to scale the IB mark into an "equivalent" provincial mark. How they choose to scale it depends on the teacher/school, it seems. It's because they do this that I really, really doubt the claim that students would be negatively impacted by an IB curriculum here; not only can I apply for the same scholarships as any other regular student with my averages - which are not negatively impacted by IB due to the scaling - I can also apply for IB scholarships that others can't. How that would result in less money I can't fathom.

[jeffreychann]

In Hong Kong, somehow there are different thoughts regarding the education system in HK. And due to the recent modification system, it's a conflicting topic to say of.

IB in HK is only provided by International Schools. Thus not many people get the opportunity to study IB, as it is offered only in private schools. From the point of views of my friends, the local education usually have a more depth of most of the things, Math particularly, that they are ahead of us for so much. And the recent modification system, made it so similar to IB, similar stuff for CAS and EE. They have to do the same thing just with a different name.

But generally, to me, I think is more like the same thing. They are both difficult to get high scores... Difference is that they got 3 years and IB in HK is 2 years.

[Guest Soiboist]

The IB is not only much more difficult than Swedish education, but it is also way more professional. For instance, in Sweden the teachers grade the students even on this level, and that it is obviously very unfair. Students that go to better schools with more high-aiming students have to work a lot harder for achieving the highest grades, compared to students that go to, say a school in the countryside, which doesn't attract students of the same academic quality. Then there is also the tendency of some teachers to not grade fairly and professionally within the class which further undermines the system.

That teachers grade their own students usually also means that what the students do in all of the year is taken into account, so they're supposed to be good already when they enter the school. In that sense going to a Swedish school is not really a learning experience, because students with bad previous education have a huge disadvantage. Furthermore this system usually means that students don't really need to learn anything. They usually just cram for all tests and quizzes during the course and then just tend to forget everything afterwards.

I'm very glad that there's the option to take the IB in Sweden!

[Rigel]

Overall, the IB is way harder than education in Peru.

For example:

In normal Physics, they only cover Mechanics.

In IB Physics, Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Waves, Thermodynamics, etc..

I'd say that English B is almost the same than the normal program.

[Ferivan]

Here in Mexico the level of the IB syllabus goes WAY beyond the public education.

Most of the IB schools in Mexico are private schools (there are only 3 public schools offering the IB diploma in the whole contry, I attend to one of them ), and even in the private schools the IB diploma is the hardest.

For exaple, in my school, the people with the IB diploma (only about 15% of the students)work way more than the common students, even though my school is one of the best ones in my state.

We have to take one extra pre-IB year than the other ones (the normal diploma is only 2 years long, at least for the state of Nuevo León, but I think is the only one the others use a 3 years diploma), and there's just no point of comparison:

Public Literature is way more easy than the A1 HL course, it only covers the redaction and they start comprenhending what a theme is.

English is over the level of B HL, but that's because we're the only totally bilingual public school in the state. Some of us could even take A2, but our school does not offer it. However the level we have comes from prior experience with the language. The students that take French in the public diploma cover almost the same as the ab initio course, but the teacher sucks |:, the IBers have a French teacher and they offer a intensive (10 hours a week course) to take B SL and go in exchange with a Canadian school.

History SL (and obviously HL), Philosophy SL and ITGS SL go just beyond than the clases the common students take.

I think SL bio is the same, but the public course goes about memorizing and it's definitely easier, HL is over the public syllabus. In physics, as in Peru, the public syllabus only covers mechanics, Physics SL is, therefore, better.

For Math,the public system has the option to focus in probabillity or calculus, in addition to the basic algebra saw in the first year. I think, however, that SL math is more dificult.

We don't have a group 6 subject, even thoug the other students take a course of history of the arts. It's only 1 semester long.

This is for the diploma offered in my school. I don't know much about the private education, or the one taken in other public schools in other states (even in Nuevo León, our school is one of the best when it comes to public eduction), however, I'm sure no public education in Mexico covers more than the IB syllabus.

[Rigel]

Here in Mexico the level of the IB syllabus goes WAY beyond the public education.

Most of the IB schools in Mexico are private schools (there are only 3 public schools offering the IB diploma in the whole contry, I attend to one of them ), and even in the private schools the IB diploma is the hardest.

For exaple, in my school, the people with the IB diploma (only about 15% of the students)work way more than the common students, even though my school is one of the best ones in my state.

We have to take one extra pre-IB year than the other ones (the normal diploma is only 2 years long, at least for the state of Nuevo León, but I think is the only one the others use a 3 years diploma), and there's just no point of comparison:

Public Literature is way more easy than the A1 HL course, it only covers the redaction and they start comprenhending what a theme is.

English is over the level of B HL, but that's because we're the only totally bilingual public school in the state. Some of us could even take A2, but our school does not offer it. However the level we have comes from prior experience with the language. The students that take French in the public diploma cover almost the same as the ab initio course, but the teacher sucks |:, the IBers have a French teacher and they offer a intensive (10 hours a week course) to take B SL and go in exchange with a Canadian school.

History SL (and obviously HL), Philosophy SL and ITGS SL go just beyond than the clases the common students take.

I think SL bio is the same, but the public course goes about memorizing and it's definitely easier, HL is over the public syllabus. In physics, as in Peru, the public syllabus only covers mechanics, Physics SL is, therefore, better.

For Math,the public system has the option to focus in probabillity or calculus, in addition to the basic algebra saw in the first year. I think, however, that SL math is more dificult.

We don't have a group 6 subject, even thoug the other students take a course of history of the arts. It's only 1 semester long.

This is for the diploma offered in my school. I don't know much about the private education, or the one taken in other public schools in other states (even in Nuevo León, our school is one of the best when it comes to public eduction), however, I'm sure no public education in Mexico covers more than the IB syllabus.

It seems that the disparities have the same pattern in South America.

[gbiftu]

I'm from Alberta, and we do the regular Alberta Education because it pretty much mirrors IB.

That's why IB in Alberta is so highly valued. Since we have Diploma Exams as well, and the IB exams are before, we're well prepared for them.

So, to answer your question, my education system is the same (more or less) to IB. IB just goes more in depth.

[Babydolleyes]

I'm from Denmark myself, and we have about 10 IB schools in the country.

Most of the IB's syllabus is considered much more difficult than that of our national system, particularly when it comes to Mathematics and Group 4. Most IB schools here also offer the Pre-IB, as it's pretty much impossible to go straight from primary school to IB1.

To illustrate the difference in levels of Mathematics, my coordinator tends to say that if you complete Mathematics Higher Level, and then decide to study Mathematics at university, you can pretty much kick back the first two semesters because you'll have learnt it all as part of your diploma, provided you've taken Statistics as an option. We don't even offer Further Maths, because that would be hell to anyone from the Danish educational system.

The overall structure of the Danish educational system is very different from the IB - you take appx. 12 subjects all in all, and then you slowly complete them over the three years you take them. Quite odd to most IB heads, I'd assume.

In the end, you pretty much get a fist to the face when they convert your grades to get into uni; medicine would require you to get around 40 points.

So, people. Tell us your story.

AWESOME! I'm from Denmark too! I was so doubtful about seeing anyone here from dk too! And I totally agree with everything you said

[TiluIB]

I live in Finland. Findland is always one of top countries in PISA(Programme for International Students Assessment). However even in Finland IBDP is considered to be much harder than Fin national educ system, specially Math HL . We're special, though

[lilianna009]

The comparison between the IB and Polish system gives... no similarities.

In Poland for whole 3 years of the high school you must learn over 10 subjects, (you can't even choose which to learn), and then in your finals, you take only 3 obligatory exams (polish, foregin language and maths) + the subjects which you need for your Uni course.

In practice, for 2 first years most of the students do nearly nothing to start learning a couple of necessary subjects.

As for difficulty, the IB is said to be way harder than the Polish system. Sometimes it's even funny to look at Polish math papers to see that maths can be easy

One sure advantage of Polish system? No CAS! It's terrible to see how much free time they have...

And how all those people complain about Maths being obligatory. I don't even think it's Math Studies Level and 30% is enough to pass, it can't be THAT diffucult.

I guess the difficulty of Polish system is that you have those 10-15 subjects. But I heard it's gonna change soon.

I hate it about our system that some stuff you must learn is SO useless. I had a chance to participate in a short exchange, Sweden. Besides that I'm quite in love with that country since then, I noticed that they learn more in practise and the level of Maths and Science subjects seemed lower, BUT still when taking into consideration PISA Sweden does better.

[PhatM.]

Hi guys,

I'm from Alberta,Canada and I will be starting IB1 (Grade 11) in just a few weeks. My school offers IB, but the majority of my school is regular stream students. However, we are taught in different, separate classes. Moreover, to be accepted into the IB1 one must complete the Pre-IB Program in Grade 10 with an 80% standing in all 6 subjects.

[kim luffy]

The curriculum in Tanzania is very limited i.e. they only offer French and Kiswahili for second languages. Actually they offer very limited subjects to take here. In my IB school they only offer Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Psychology, Business Management, ITGS and Economics. That's about it :/

[lullabyy]

The comparison between the IB and Polish system gives... no similarities.

In Poland for whole 3 years of the high school you must learn over 10 subjects, (you can't even choose which to learn), and then in your finals, you take only 3 obligatory exams (polish, foregin language and maths) + the subjects which you need for your Uni course.

In practice, for 2 first years most of the students do nearly nothing to start learning a couple of necessary subjects.

As for difficulty, the IB is said to be way harder than the Polish system. Sometimes it's even funny to look at Polish math papers to see that maths can be easy

One sure advantage of Polish system? No CAS! It's terrible to see how much free time they have...

Totally agree. Plus there are loads of subjects which are complete waste of time... Such as PP, PO, WOS...

And the fact that in your final year, when you're about to write exams in May, you have to study almost all of these subjects is crazy. Like come on, my boyfriend wants to study Dentistry but instead of focusing strictly on Biology, Chemistry and so on, he'll waste his time on History.

I'm so happy that I decided to do IB...

[willsanguyener]

I'm from California, USA.

Currently, the Californian education system is ranked 47th/50th in the United States in effectiveness. At my school, IB was introduced here to attract more of the wealther families to attend. I'd have to say that such a tactic has worked beautifully. I could go on about the development of a social caste system at my school, but that's not what this thread is about.

AT my school (and in the US in general), IB is considered extremely difficult, but comparable to a highly loaded AP curriculum. Many AP and IB courses and fused together as well. IBSL Economics and AP Economics, for example, are taught by the same teacher concurrently. There are only different IB and AP courses for AP/IB English courses as well as AP/IB Science courses. Otherwise, if you're taking an IB course, 95% of the students also take an AP course that deals with said subject. For any IB classes that students can't take (for example, IBSL Psychology isn't offered at my school), they usually take the AP equivalent.

The original IB student body when I was a freshman was around 150. That has been cut down now to about 75. Most students enter Pre-IB in their freshman year, and drop at the end of their sophomore because they perceive IB as a highly rigorous tenure. However, from what I have learned from alumni and personal experience, the AP outclasses IB in subject areas such as languages. The AP Spanish test was extremely difficult while the IBSL Spanish test was incomparably easy.

I'm not even going to discuss the joke that is the regular CA curriculum.

[Jaymi]

In Zimbabwe, IB is considered as a very high class and sophisticated way of getting a high school education. The people here feel that if you are doing IB or have done IB, they look up to you for taking up somrthing challenging.

The national education is called ZIMSEC, its only recognized in Zimbabwe alone, and only government schools have Zimsec. The other form of education here is IGCSE's and A Levels.

[dubyawhy]

I'm from California, USA.

Currently, the Californian education system is ranked 47th/50th in the United States in effectiveness. At my school, IB was introduced here to attract more of the wealther families to attend. I'd have to say that such a tactic has worked beautifully. I could go on about the development of a social caste system at my school, but that's not what this thread is about.

AT my school (and in the US in general), IB is considered extremely difficult, but comparable to a highly loaded AP curriculum. Many AP and IB courses and fused together as well. IBSL Economics and AP Economics, for example, are taught by the same teacher concurrently. There are only different IB and AP courses for AP/IB English courses as well as AP/IB Science courses. Otherwise, if you're taking an IB course, 95% of the students also take an AP course that deals with said subject. For any IB classes that students can't take (for example, IBSL Psychology isn't offered at my school), they usually take the AP equivalent.

The original IB student body when I was a freshman was around 150. That has been cut down now to about 75. Most students enter Pre-IB in their freshman year, and drop at the end of their sophomore because they perceive IB as a highly rigorous tenure. However, from what I have learned from alumni and personal experience, the AP outclasses IB in subject areas such as languages. The AP Spanish test was extremely difficult while the IBSL Spanish test was incomparably easy.

I'm not even going to discuss the joke that is the regular CA curriculum.

Hmm. Interesting. I wouldn't say AP is better than IB in terms of languages. IB HL Spanish would be comparable to AP Spanish. Not to mention IB students can take languages at A2(way way harder).

For French and Spanish, AP may be taught more rigorously. But for Chinese(my IB), the AP test was ridiculously easy(I took it in Freshman year), while now I am in Jr Year, and IB Chinese B is so much harder.

[Remixer]

I voted "No", because I believe the German education system to be harder than the IB.

At least as far as the "Gymnasium" (highest level of high school) system is concerned. The same is reflected in Germany's attitude towards the IB, being the only (I think) country in the world to impose categorical requirements for an IB Diploma, completed by a German citizen, to be recognized as a real high school certificate and enabling you to apply for university.

However, I believe the IB to be a much better educational system than the German one. The IB, in my belief, prospers individual strengths and changes our way of thinking. When you study Years 1 - 12 in Germany, in most cases you end up quite narrow-minded when it comes to analysis and problem-solving.

Edited September 13, 2011 by Remixer