The impacts of International Baccalaureate expansion on professional cultures and assessments in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore

ABSTRACT

The rapid propagation of the International Baccalaureate (IB) in the East and Southeast Asian region, together with the continuing globalisation of education, has generated implementational opportunities and challenges for teachers within the IB network of schools. Based on semi-structured interviews with teachers and school leaders across 15 IB Diploma Programme (DP) schools within the three milieus of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, the study explored how DP’s expansion fuelled ambiguities and inconsistencies in programme policy, which impacted on professional cultures and assessments. The analysis highlights the overreliance on the voluntary contribution of teachers and external examiners in supporting professional development and assessments as well as the connection of assessments to anxiety and dissonance in teachers.

KEYWORDS:

• International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP)
• Hong Kong
• Taiwan
• Singapore
• professional cultures
• assessments

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the reviewers, whose contributions and suggestions have improved this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Three-Type Acts of Experimental Education include the Enforcement Act for School-based Experimental Education, Enforcement Act for Non-school Type Experimental Education across Education Levels below Senior High School, and Enforcement of the Act Governing the Commissioning of the Operation of Public Elementary and High School to the Private Sector. These acts become the legislative foundation for experimental education and encourage private-sector participation in providing education service.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Republic of China (Taiwan), Project Number: MOST 109-2410-H-024-023.