March 1, 2023

As one of Singapore’s International Baccalaureate (IB) schools, Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) was founded on 1 March 1886. IB has experienced worldwide growth in recent years, with Asia-Pacific having seen the fastest increase. The ‘brand recognition’ of IB is primarily responsible for its rising popularity. IB’s brand recognition includes an elite image, liberal and progressive pedagogies, and good university admission results.

‘The influx of International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes into local education systems in Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea’ (Educational Review, 2022), by Professor Moosung Lee (University of Canberra), Dr Hyejin Kim (NUS Political Science), and Assistant Professor Ewan Wright (Education University of Hong Kong) presents a comparative analysis of IB in these three countries. It argues that the way in which IB has been interpreted and positioned in local school systems varies greatly across these nations.

The study is informed by the concept of institutionalisation, the process in which something becomes an institution built on ‘symbolic elements, social activities, and material resources’. It focuses on institutional legitimacy, i.e., the social acceptability of IB as an institution from a cultural-cognitive perspective and is based on documentary analysis of policy and media documents in the respective regions. Locally published documents focusing on IB were gathered for qualitative analysis that aimed to discover reoccurring themes.

In Hong Kong, IB schools have received much media coverage and been seen as the international curriculum of choice. The decision of elite schools to offer IB instead of other international curriculums also reflects IB’s institutional legitimacy. IB has been portrayed as pedagogically progressive and suitable for brighter students. It is perceived as a viable alternative to local schools, deemed insufficient, exam-oriented, and “spoon-feeding”. IB students are over-represented at elite universities, demonstrating the substantive advantage of IB compared to other local options.

In Singapore, the proliferation of IB has been much smaller scale. Stratification in Singapore’s education system has been a well-accepted feature rooted in its commitment to meritocracy, one of its core values. The addition of IB as another elite choice cannot alter this landscape. While the reputation of IB has made it a popular choice among elite international schools, it is the name of those schools, rather than IB, that carries the symbolic image of an elite education. Moreover, as the government has been looking at overseas developments to reform its education system, there has been convergence of the local school system to IB in terms of the educational experience offered. As such, IB’s institutional legitimacy is relatively weaker in Singapore.

In Korea, IB has been actively promoted to local school systems. Policymakers and educators regard IB as a potential solution to problems of the current system, which is overly competitive and exam-oriented. The introduction of IB would ideally inspire the students to think more critically and creatively. The presence of IB is expected to incentivise local school reforms. This has allowed IB to gain institutional legitimacy relatively quickly.

Read the article here: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131911.2021.1891023