Benefits Of The International Baccalaureate Career-Related Programme

At a time when an increasing number of young adults are questioning the necessity and value of four-year college degrees, the International Baccalaureate (IB) has introduced a relatively new entrant into the career education space that is gaining attention.

The IB’s Career-related Programme (CP) affords high school students a chance to blend academic study with specialist experiences and courses from a variety of technology companies, art schools, and other businesses, paving a pathway to career and vocational success.

The International Baccalaureate has been offering rigorous educational curricula since the 1960s. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of IB offerings grew by 34.2% worldwide, and as of October 2024, over 8,000 programmes were available at more than 5,800 schools in 160+ countries.

IB programmes first began to be offered in the United States in 1971, and as of November, there were 1,910 authorized IB World Schools across 48 states. According to a recent survey, the IB is currently educating over 785,000 students in the U.S, the vast majority of them in public school settings.

While most of those schools offer the Primary Years Programme (for students ages 3–12), the Middle Years Program (for students ages 11–16), or the best-known Diploma Programme (DP) for high school students, it’s the IB’s newest offering, the Career-related Programme, that holds particular promise, especially now when more concerns are being raised about the high cost of college, the relevance of four-year degrees, and the availability of good jobs that don’t require a college education.

The Career-related Programme, first offered in November 2014, is designed for students who are interested in career-related education but want to be prepared for choosing their best pathway among the options of additional higher education, apprenticeships or employment after graduation.

As of November, 2024, there were 404 schools offering the CP diploma globally, a gain of 47% since 2020. Currently, 183 schools provide the CP in the U. S., educating more than 8,400 students.

The CP involves a three-part educational framework consisting of courses from the IB’s Diploma Program, the CP core and career-related studies.

Students must complete at least two DP courses and the associated written examinations graded by IB examiners in any of its six subject groups — science, math, studies in language and literature, language acquisition, individuals and societies and the arts.

The CP core combines academic and practical skills in a manner intended to connect DP courses to career interests. It consists of four components:

• Personal and professional skills designed to develop attitudes, skills and strategies that can be applied to personal and professional situations;
• Service learning for the development and application of knowledge and skills towards meeting a targeted community need; and
• A reflective project involving an in-depth body of work produced over an extended period of time and completed near the end of the CP. Through the reflective project students are expected to develop sharper communication and analytic skills as they evaluate an ethical issue arising from their career-related studies.
• Language development ensures that students develop skills in a second language to further their understanding of the wider world. The ability to communicate in more than one language is essential to the IB’s concept of an international education.

Career-related Studies are designed to prepare students for higher education, an internship or apprenticeship, or a position in their field of interest. In that vein, IB collaborates with several companies and organizations that serve as career-education providers.

Several of these providers — known as CRS Strategic Providers — have signed formal cooperation agreements with the IB. They include Arizona State University (ASU), the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Microsoft, Pearson the Savannah College of Art & Design, and the World Academy of Sport (WAoS).

Each school can create its own unique version of the program, allowing a portion of the curriculum to prepare students for jobs in business and accounting, engineering, biomedical sciences, and art & design. Other industry providers that have worked with IB world schools on career-related studies include Adobe, Apple, Cisco, FEMA, Knowledge Matters, The National Center for Construction Education and Research, U.S. Soccer, and YouScience.

In order to offer IB curricula, a school must be authorized as an IB World School. As part of the authorization process, schools receive extensive training and consulting, and they must satisfy professional development requirements. They also pay initial authorization and annual costs associated with the program.

This year has seen new developments concerning the official recognition being given IB courses. For example, the American Council on Education recently recommended that colleges and universities award students at least 3 credits for IB scores of 4 or higher for the 20 courses it reviewed. (Students are given a course score between one and seven for IB exams; most universities require a score of “4” or “5” as the minimum for granting advanced placement or course credit).

In May 2024, 5,494 U.S. students took CP exams, representing a 31.91% increase from the previous year.

In addition, in Oregon, the legislature passed House Bill 4137, which mandates that students who complete the IB’s DP or CP satisfy the state’s high school graduation requirements. Several states already treat completion of the DP as equivalent to a high school diploma, but Oregon became the first to extend the same equivalency to the career program.

The Career-related Programme has taken the important step of integrating college preparation with career readiness. It combines the academic rigor of the DP with the development of specific employment-related competencies, showing that both aims can co-exist and be served within one curriculum.

That combo offers substantial postsecondary educational benefits to graduates. A 2018 study examined college enrollment and persistence patterns for all CP graduates from high schools in the U.S. between 2013 and 2015. It found that CP graduates enroll in college at higher rates (81%) than do all high school graduates nationally (68%). The study also revealed that CP graduates had higher first-year college persistence than did all high school graduates (89% versus 72%, respectively).

A more recent study on the graduating class of 2016 showed similar CP benefits. For example:

• Compared to the national postsecondary enrollment rate of 64%, this group of CP graduates had an enrollment rate of 72%.
• CP graduates enrolled more often than the national cohort at four-year institutions (55% vs. 43%).
• CP graduates averaged an 81% first-to-second-year persistence rate, compared to the national rate of 72%.
• CP graduates completed their degree in six years at higher rates than the national average (77% compared to 68%).

IB’s Career-related Programme offers students and school districts a chance to bridge the traditional academic vs. practical divide. As Joseph Lee, Superintendent of Palm Beach County Schools, said, “The CP really blended nicely with the career academies we already had in our district, over 270 of them. It was a perfect marriage for us, as it opens access to more students and gives us the opportunity to diversify our IB programmes.”