A-levels or the IB diploma?

FROM LEFT: Barnaby Lenon, Harrow UK; Mark Hensman, Harrow International School; Paul Beresford-Hill, Bangkok Patana

There are even choices where you’d least expect them. Take the British-oriented international schools in Thailand, for example. While all generally conform to the British national curriculum through the IGSE level, the final two years are another story.

For university-bound 17- and 18-year-olds in the United Kingdom, choosing a programme of study is usually a no-brainer. The only practical option for most is the A-level qualification, the so-called "gold standard" of British education".

Under the recently revised A-level system, this normally means taking five A/S (Advanced Subsidiary) subjects the first year before narrowing in on three subjects at the A2 level the second year.

In Thailand, students in British-oriented schools face a very different situation. The same UK A-level qualification is available, but only from two Bangkok schools, Harrow International School and, starting this September, the brand-new Shrewsbury International School.

There are two reasons for the limited choice. The first stems from the acceptance by the Thai Ministry of Education of the IGCSE qualification for university entry. This allows students in British system schools to skip their last two years of secondary education in favour of a quick entry into a Thai university. This is a popular option for many Thai students, but it made the A-level programme uneconomical for some of their schools.

The second reason is a bit surprising to some people. Many of the better known British-oriented schools in Thailand have opted to forego A-levels altogether, adopting the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma programme in its place.

Like A-levels, the IB diploma is a two-year programme of study. However, IB students are required to complete courses from a wider range of subject areas. These include languages, mathematics, experimental and social sciences, as well as an elective course and several interdisciplinary courses unique to the IB.

Fortunately both A-levels and the IB diploma are quality programmes that are well understood and accepted by university admissions officers throughout the world.

Is one better than the other? That is a subject of a lively debate. For a taste of the issues involved, the learning post recently talked to headmasters from schools that sit on opposite sides of the divide.

Barnaby Lenon

You will not find a stronger advocate of the A-level system that Barnaby Lenon, the headmaster of the famous Harrow school in the UK. At Harrow International School, the local affiliate, Dr J. Mark Hensman is also firmly in the A-level camp.

Lenon: The new A-levels are a distinct improvement on the old system although the changes are not enormous. Because the exams are happening at the half-way stage in the course, it has encouraged people to work much harder in their first year than they ever did before. If they do well, it sets them up for university entrance.

It gives them encouragement for the second half of the course and, in fact, if anything, takes the pressure off slightly for the second half of the course. That is good because, in the past, pupils were all too quick to abandon extracurricular activities in their final year at school because they had these huge exams. That’s no longer the case.

Hensman: There is enough flexibility within the A-level curriculum that you can apply the content to the setting. So we don’t have to teach British examples. We can draw on local examples and regional examples. If you take geography, for example, I taught A-level geography last year and a lot of content was Thailand and the Southeast Asian region.

Lenon: Well, if you look at the fact that they’ve been studying since they were three in terms of the national curriculum, they’ve had that breadth for many years through to lower sixth or year 12. That’s a long time, a long period of being generalists.

In my experience in teaching, very many pupils only begin to flourish academically when they get into the sixth form and are able to concentrate on the subjects which attract them. The greatest day of my life was when I was able to give up French and maths at school and concentrate on the humanities subjects that I enjoyed.

Lenon: No, it’s not for two reasons. First of all, all students are studying at least four subjects anyway under the A-level system. And many of those would have chosen to study a wide range of subjects or would have been encouraged to do so.

Another general point I would make is that there are two ways that you can achieve breadth. One is by studying a very wide range of subjects superficially – and it inevitably has to be superficial if you’re studying lots of different subjects.

But you can also achieve breadth, funnily enough, by studying one subject in great depth. Anyone who’s been to university and studied a subject like maths or history or geography knows that by studying in great depth you eventually begin to move out into other territory and discover breadth through depth. It’s not true that you are a well-educated person if you study fifteen subjects superficially.

Lenon: The headmaster of Winchester in England and I both studied the IB carefully and have rejected it. It’s far more important that a student should discover something that they’re interested in and work hard at it than be forced to go through a compulsory but maybe unpopular curriculum.

With the IB, you’re forced to study mathematics, two languages, a science and only two other subjects. At a school like mine and Winchester in England, students who want to become doctors might choose to do physics, chemistry, biology, and music – or economics, history, geography and art for those who are more interested in humanities.

None of those combinations are available under the IB. So in one respect, the IB is quite restrictive and narrow. That’s why, while I think there are many good things about the IB, we won’t be adopting it.

Hensman: I think the point Mr Lenon raises is a really important one. The breadth in the IB actually restricts the choices that the students have. Harrow International is similar to Harrow School in the UK in that we have a lot of students who wish to specialise in medicine, law or financial management. They are able to do that given the structure of A-levels. They wouldn’t be able to do that with IB.

I do think they both have strengths, however. I agree with the fact that there are many good things about the IB – the theory of knowledge, the extended essay and the CAS, those are features that guarantee a holistic approach.

Our answer to that is that we are providing those sorts of opportunities in our extracurricular programme and the community services programme that is associated with that. The extended essay is actually provided intrinsically within the curriculum itself.

I think the two programmes are distinctive and I think the distinctiveness of each has benefits for different kinds of students. If I was coming at it as a parent, I would want to say ‘what’s the learning style of my student and what are the things that my student needs? What are the things that my child is likely to do in the future? How does the IB, how do A-levels best meet those needs?’"

Lenon: Obviously most of my pupils and a good proportion of yours (Hensman’s) are planning to go to the university in the United Kingdom where 99.5 percent of applicants have taken A-levels. The numbers who are entering through the IB is minute. It’s not disqualifying them, but it’s a non-standard route.

Hensman: One of the things that we are pleased with at Harrow International is that we are gaining entry into the kinds of universities that students from Harrow School have for generations been able to gain access to. A very strong part of the reason for that accessibility is because of the very good A-level results that we’re achieving.

Lenon: I put the IB syllabuses and question papers in front of the heads of some of my departments at Harrow and asked them for their views. In many subjects they regarded the IB syllabuses as being too superficial and regarded them as being a serious step backwards. That’s a very important criticism. I can not ask my teachers who’ve been teaching to a certain level for 20 years to step right down again.

Paul Beresford-Hill

In the words of Headmaster Dr Paul Beresford-Hill, Bangkok Patana is still a "fiercely" British school. More than 80 percent of its teachers are British and it is modeled on the British national curriculum. Ten years ago, however, the school opted to introduce the IB diploma in the sixth form.

I think the IB was adopted because of the belief amongst our senior staff at the time that the IB offered a more complete and rounded educational experience than was offered by the A-levels.

The second reason was that we began to see that as the school grew and expanded, it became attractive not only to the British students but also to an increasingly international clientele.

I think what the IB does is provide every student with a breadth of learning which encompasses humanities, which encompasses mathematics, sciences. Not only that but they also see things like community service as an integral part of their educational experience.

You’ll hear many people, and I totally agree, saying that the heart and soul of the international baccalaureate is the theory of knowledge. The students are forced to look at the connectedness between mathematics and science, between humanities and languages and literature.

We try through the IB programme – and I’m not saying that doesn’t happen through A-levels – but I think the IB programme is much more focused on trying to get kids to ask questions. Clearly in some areas there’s more factual content than others. But questioning, trying to understand, the origins and the basis of knowledge and trying to draw from that a synthesis of what’s happening around you, in my estimation, it’s a precious gift which we as educators are really privileged to hand on to these kids. That, they will take into college; that, they will take into university.

When the IB did some research a couple of years ago into the percentage of IB graduates in British universities who had achieved honours degrees in comparison to kids from other systems, the indications were — and I haven’t got the research with me — but the indications were that they certainly held their own if not were slightly above the norm.

The evidence is that when kids take the IB and they follow an IB curriculum and they go to a British university, they do as well as or better than kids who have A-levels. Now what does that tell you? That tells you that the preparation, the depth must have been sufficient – if not sufficient to fulfil all the knowledge bases, the scope and the philosophy of the education they’ve had gave them the skills to be able to make up any deficits that they may have had.

I attended a reunion of Patana students two weeks ago in London. It was a reunion in a hotel in London for 25 of them. They were all at the university. We chatted and one of the questions I asked them was "how does what you are doing differ in your estimation from what your peers from the English school system or from other schools are doing?"

Almost universally, they said they felt that they were far less parochial. Of course, that would be the case, but not only that, they also felt they had a broader grasp of what they were doing. They saw this degree, these courses as part of a bigger picture rather than just a kind of a narrow end in itself

They felt that even though they were concentrating in specialised areas, whatever that happened to be, they were able to relate those areas to other subjects, to other areas of knowledge and they were very excited. They also had extremely good research skills which is something that the IB does encourage through the special projects and the extended essay. That, they all said, was a skill that they found their peers from the other schools just didn’t have.

I know some headmasters think that at age 16 a young person should be able to discard the things they don’t like and concentrate on things they’re good at. Hogwash!

I absolutely think that is hogwash. Why? Because as an adult, having gone through all of that, thinking back to when I was 16, I didn’t know what I truly wanted to do. I was buffeted by my passions, my interests, at that age level.

If we’re looking at what prepares you for life; what prepares you for making choices about a career; what prepares you for making intelligent choices about what kind of a degree you want to do and where you want to focus your life; I think the IB keeps options open, even though some of those options may be painful. I would have struggled through IB mathematics, but at the same time, the IB is flexible enough to be able to offer courses for people like me.

I’ve taught IB, I’ve taught A-levels and I taught the same subject at IB and A-level. I taught English and certainly in my estimation I don’t feel that the depth is lacking. I think A-levels possibly provide more time for students to explore some aspects of their own interest which may or may not be related to the curriculum or the syllabus. I went through the A-level system and I knew when I was studying my three A-levels at sixth form I had a lot of time to explore areas of literature or areas of history and perhaps to do more reading than I would have done.

But there’s a trade-off with everything. I am totally illiterate when it comes to mathematics. I’m totally innumerate. When I was in my late 20’s and I became a headmaster I had to start learning about accounts, budgets, and all of these things and I had to re-educate myself in very very fundamental ways.

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Last modified: March 17, 2003