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

[The Filipino Limner]

In the Philippines, the educational system is just really plain awful. If you're not in a private school, you'll have to go to an industrialized city to have a good public education. IB is only offered in about 5-10 schools in the whole country. 2/3 of the Students in the Philippines fail the national achievement test to measure knowledge taught to them each year.

The situation is getting harder and harder with more and more people! If our country doesn't take steps to improve our nation's educational system, we will need lots and lots more time to develop our country into one that is industrialized, one that is more advanced, one that is more education-friendly!

[URA BOAT]

ok..a lot was posted but what i wanted to add is that...well i go to a ghetto school that is trying to turn their ghettoness into something better...i had only one non-advanced class in my life and i hated it..you would be surprised how stupid kids are these days..(true story..we were given an assignment..to read 4 pages out of a novel..and the next day we had a quiz one it..well it happens so that i didn't read and sine we could use our books on the quiz i read the page and was the first one to finished the quiz..)the ib is so much harder...and to me it feels like hell cuz our school just started the program and we never had a chance to take ib-prep..

Edited November 1, 2011 by URA BOAT

[aberrant_apple]

I'm also in Ontario, Canada. We're one of only 2 IB schools in the city and the only one that is public. I have a brother going through the normal curriculum so I've noticed some of the similarities/differences with IB.

While the curriculum is the same for the most part, easier even in some cases, it's really all the added work that makes IB so much harder. The regular curriculum can be easily managed depending on what courses are taken, but IB adds so many extra assignments that it gets very demanding. Content wise though they are very similar, IB is just more thorough and in-depth. There are some things that are more difficult, like HL Chem, which incorporates united that usually aren't studied until university. Others are much, MUCH easier, like Math Studies, which doesn't even cover half of Data Management or Advanced Functions in Ontario. As for French, due to the fact that we're made to take it throughout school regardless of IB, it was just a bit more in-depth than what is normally taught at an English speaking school, but not a French Immersion school. Expectations are higher, yes, but the teachers are generally better and the classes are more involved as a whole.

[Laura Dragnic]

Im from Chile, were only people with money are able to have a good education. Schools and universities throughout Chile have been out of work for 5 months now, demanding an education of better quality and access for all, with no monetary differentiation. Having the IB is a privilege.

[Award Winning Boss]

If you take 6 A levels then A levels are harder

If you take the required 3 - 4 A levels then IB is harder and the work is more

[Gaby]

In Poland, the national programme is easier (which can easily be seen from the proportion of IB to regular kids in clubs in the city). People usually start studying for the final school exams (matura) around the middle of their final year. Also, the minimum requirment for matura exam are 3 subjects (though, in most schools, you have to study all the subjects for most of your time in high school), these are Polish, Maths and a foreign language, and you can all just keep them on standard level, if you don't give a damn. If you do, though, you can take additional subjects on either standard or higher level. I don't know if there are any limits concerning number of subjects taken cause I was never really interested in it. Also, subjects in IB are way more interesting than in Polish programme, I say it after being in Polish programme for 10 years, and the first time I really came to enjoy what I'm studying is in IB. What's more, in Polish programme all of your grade depends on your final exams, oral exams (which you have to pass) do not usually count into the final grade and there are no things such as our IA or EE. There is only some kind of a "research" work for Polish oral exam.

However, what is utterly riddiculous, many people I met who actually knew what IB is (and most don't, I have to explain it to them) actually think IB is a stupid, extremely easy programme for rich kids and there is no point in doing it because it's much worse and gives you less knowledge than the regular programme.

Overall, Polish programme is extremely outdated and teaches a lot of useless things, involves a great deal of memorising and forces students to write according to an "answer key" hence testing their ability to think as the examiner does. Until it changes (and the changes that I see are being introduced does not improve it, rather make it even more stupid), clever, English-knowing students will keep choosing IB over national programme.

[Hawx]

I live in India. The educational system there has 2 main boards CBSE and ICSE. If compared to IB both the boards are hell lot easier. There are no internals.

I find IB the toughest international board in the country.

[breanna_cheer]

I live in Florida. I've taken AP classes as electives and they were cake.The regular students can sleep and text and play around in the hallways and still get A's in the classes, whereas that would never happen in my IB classes. As far as AP classes go, unless you take like 15 a year it doesnt compare to IB and doesnt look nearly as good as IB does when you apply to college. I'm in SL Math and most seniors in my school are taking that class I took in 9th grade. For english they may have to read a book every couple months and write a page long book report on it and complain that it's too much work. Spanish we write 250 word essays almost every class. IB goes way more in depth in every class and the regular classes are walks in the park compared to them. My school basically segregates us IBers from the rest of the school (I cant say I dont like it). Our schedules are different, classes are different, we get treated like outcasts and get made fun of (but i wont go into that considered i'll be their boss one day )

Overall IB is, if you ask me, the hardest curriculum in the country.

[opus92fan]

Yeah, the school board keeps dumbing down the curriculum where I live. It's so stupid. They keep dumbing down the science courses by removing lab experience so an "English teacher could teach it" because we can't produce enough qualified science teachers. I heard at one point they might remove chemistry, bio, and physics so one would take general science courses throughout high school, which would screw over people who want to go into science in university because it would take them 5 years to do a 4 year degree and they would be very limited as to options for choosing a university.

IB is so much more demanding than the regular curriculum it's insane. It seems like regular students never have homework, that or they don't do it.

[White94]

I'm in Scotland and there's only 3 maybe 4 schools that do the IB and it's definetly alot harder to do IB than scottish highers. Especially since 45 points in term of UCAS points is way higher than almost every scottish higher student and they only take like 3 sometime 4 subjects.

The IB's designed to be difficult though with all the extra activites and essays we have to do.

[haydenj96]

I'm from Modesto, California. IB is definitely, without a doubt the most difficult program here in California, and possibly the country.

You have AP and private schools up against IB. AP classes are NOT as difficult as IB classes. Plus, AP is not a full program like IB is. Further, AP exams are mostly multiple choice. Private schools differ but IB is offered in many because a more rigorous program hasn't been made up yet.

[Marrehj]

The IB is way harder than the normal swedish education. Eventhough there resently was a reform involving two new grades to add to the previously three leveled grading scale and a stricter syllabus, there still are lots of differences in difficulty.

For some concrete examples; in Sweden you can study maths from 1-5(some schools have some extra courses but I won't count those), each level being harder and harder. Math studies is like taking 1-3, SL is 1-5 and HL isn't even represented as it goes up to university level. Still it counts as 1-5 if you've taken HL '

The same (as far as I know) goes for all other IB subjects, if you choose HL, you're on university level as SL counts as the highest swedish level.

Just to compare IB in Sweden vs other countries, I feel like we get a small advantage as our "high school" is three years, and as we all know the IB is two years. At my school we have this year had "pre-courses", and in some subjects we've even started working on the real IB syllabus. So even if we fight a lot harder than swedes in normal programmes, we atleast have that tiny advantage

[MariusIBDP]

IBDP is only offered in 2 schools in Lithuania (although there are 3-4 candidate schools). Our national curriculum is not considered to be poor, although there are quite a lot of flaws that you see when you go to IB. It is considered EXTREMELY more difficult to go to IB than to national curriculum, both by IBeers and national students - most people cannot even imagine staying up until 4 or 5 AM because of school. It's being exaggerated a lot too - people who only heard couple of times about IB and has no relation to it keep saying that its extremely difficult and you have to be a genius to go here