About the International Baccalaureate®

The International Baccalaureate® (IB) is a non-profit educational foundation, motivated by its mission, focused on the student.

Our 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, we currently work with 3,290 schools in 141 countries to develop and offer three challenging programmes to over 969,000 students aged 3 to 19 years.

Learning, developing and growing

Here at the International Baccalaureate® (IB) we’re committed to actively engaging in the cycle of learning, developing and growing.

This is a direct result of the IB's commitment to providing high quality education for a better world. Education does not stop with the students, it continues across the IB through our commitment to the growth and development of our employees.

If you share our passion for offering a high quality, professional standard of international education, embrace teamwork and strive to work for a global service-oriented organization committed to its people then you could be IB.

Our aim is to recruit and develop competent, motivated and engaged people with an international mindset. In return the IB offers all employees wherever they are based:

• an exciting organization, balancing academic rigour with a professional focus and passion for the IB mission

• the opportunity to work in a truly global organization with a commitment to providing high quality, professional standards of international education
• the ability to make a real difference in international education, and to take responsibility for making things happen

• a learning organization that emphasizes thought leadership and collaboration across global teams
• a working environment that is committed to growing and developing its staff through exciting on the job learning opportunities, training and management development opportunities and multiple international career paths
• rewards that reflects performance
• fair and equal opportunities in full compliance with local employment legislation

Mission

The IB is more than its educational programmes and certificates. 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

The IB has seen tremendous planned growth in the past five years, delivering successful performance through a strong focus on quality, access and infrastructure.

The new strategy builds upon our successes and ensures that the IB has a clear direction for the next five years. At its heart lies our ambition to establish the IB as a global leader in international education.
To achieve this, the IB Board of Governors has endorsed the vision together with a set of strategic goals and strategic objectives.

History of the International Baccalaureate®

The International Baccalaureate® (IB) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1968 as a non-profit educational foundation.

A group of talented, forward-thinking teachers at the International School of Geneva, with assistance from several other international schools, created the IB Diploma Programme. What started life as a single programme for internationally mobile students preparing for university, has today grown into three programmes for students aged 3 to 19.

The programme in the early days consisted of a common pre-university curriculum and a common set of external examinations for students in schools throughout the world, seeking to provide students with a truly international education. Although the first IB schools were predominantly private international schools, they included a very small number of private national institutions and schools belonging to state education departments. This has changed over the years and today over half of all IB World Schools (authorized to offer one or more of our programmes) are state schools.

Although the first IB schools were predominantly private international schools, today over half of all IB World Schools are state schools.

Carrying forward the ideals and dreams of the IB founders, the organization exists to provide high quality education for a better world, as expressed in our mission statement.

IB programmes continue to encourage this international-mindedness in students and educators through the IB learner profile—a set of values that represent our mission and principles.