About the International Baccalaureate^®

The International Baccalaureate^® (IB) is a non-profit educational foundation, motivated by its mission, focused on the student. Its three programmes for students aged 3 to 19 help develop the intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world. Founded in 1968, IB currently works with 3,241 schools in 141 countries to develop and offer three challenging programmes to over 935,000 students aged 3 to 19 years.

Mission and strategy

The International Baccalaureate^® (IB) is more than its three educational programmes. At our heart we are motivated by a mission to create a better world through education.

We value our hard-earned reputation for quality, for high standards and for pedagogical leadership. We achieve our goals by working with partners and by actively involving our stakeholders, particularly teachers.

We promote intercultural understanding and respect, not as an alternative to a sense of cultural and national identity, but as an essential part of life in the 21st century.

All of this is captured in our mission statement.

• The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
• To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment.
• These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.

Strategy

Putting our mission into practice for more students is the goal of our strategic plan. Adopted in April 2004, the plan addresses the key issue of how we will plan and manage our rapid growth over the next five to ten years.

We implement our strategic plan through an annual process of business planning that requires each department/office to develop goals and financial forecasts for the next three years. While we are a non-profit foundation, our stakeholders expect the same quality and discipline of management and planning that would be found in any other international organization.

"The programme has given me and my classmates a sense of community, and the IB's focus on helping a student be a well-rounded individual has given me self-confidence."
Jenna Gaylene Tichon, student at Westwood Collegiate, Winnipeg, Manitoba