IB Diploma Schools severely disadvantaged by ranking tables
December 18, 2017IB Diploma graduates excluded from State based ranking tables
IB Diploma graduates are not included in State based ranking tables as their results are unavailable until early January. As such, Diploma schools are disadvantaged in comparison rankings that are usually created without using IB Diploma results.
During November 2017 approximately two and a half thousand Australasian IB Diploma candidates sat for their final Diploma exams. Student results will be released to schools on January 4, 2018 and to students via the IB candidates’ website on January 7. These students are excluded from merit ranks created by media organisations based on State or National senior secondary courses such as the NSW HSC, Victorian VCE, South Australian SACE, Queensland OP and New Zealand NCEA. As a result, such merit ranks are inaccurate reflections of academic performance of school cohorts. With some schools having up to 70% of their cohorts completing the IB Diploma rather than the State or territory curricula the distortion of merit ranks excluding IB Diploma results can be profound on overall academic ranking.
For an accurate academic comparison between schools offering the IB Diploma and those that do not, such rankings should not be published until IB Diploma results are released in January 2018.
A total of 2,418 students in Australia and 338 in New Zealand sat for these examinations. In Victoria there were 676 candidates, 552 in Queensland, 547 in NSW, 398 in South Australia, 134 in the ACT, 46 in Western Australia, 40 is Tasmania and 25 in the Northern Territory. Additional students sat for these examinations in PNG and Fiji.
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is sat for by approximately 170,000 students in more than 3,000 schools in 147 countries worldwide. For more information contact [email protected]
For media reporting of this please see: Canberra Grammar drops in HSC – but more students in other programs.