Benefits and Challenges of International Baccalaureate Education in Japan

• In Event: Internationalization of education in Japan: challenges and opportunities

Proposal

International Baccalaureate (IB) has been expanding its presence in Japan since its government developed a plan entitled “Japan Revitalization Strategy - Japan is Back” in 2013. One of the main educational goals of this plan is to produce individuals with global mindsets. By focusing on this, the government expects Japan to become as competitive in the global market again as it used to be.
IB education started in Geneva, Switzerland in 1968 with the Diploma Program (DP), with the aim to “develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect” (IBO, 2018b).
The Japanese government intended to increase the number of IB schools to 200 by 2018 (Japan, 2013). In order to achieve this goal, the government and the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) worked closely together to develop a dual language IB diploma that offers some subjects in Japanese (IBO, 2018a).
However, as of 2018 there are only 20 schools implementing IBDP, and only eight of these schools have started a dual language program (MEXT, 2018). Since the government was unable to achieve its initial goal, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) established the IB education consortium in 2018 to reexamine and improve its strategy (MEXT, 2018). This literature review aims to explore what benefits and challenges IB education brings to educational settings in Japan.
A major benefit of IB education is that it prepares high school students for a new entrance exam that starts in 2020. The new exam focuses on assessing students’ “power of thinking, judgment and expression” (Mccrostie, 2017). IB Education helps students to develop “21st-century skills” (Wright & Lee, 2014, p.199), develop critical mindsets and problem-solving skills (Taylor & Porath, 2006), and prepares them for post-secondary education (Saavedra, Lavore & Flores-Ivish, 2014).
However, IB education might also increase educational inequality among students due to its high costs in schools’ authorization processes and affiliation license costs by the IBO. Tuition for IB schools is high, ultimately leading to educational inequality where students who cannot afford tuition will be excluded from IB education altogether. In Australia, IB schools are located in affluent areas where only families with high socioeconomic status live and where IB education has become “an indicator of new and emerging forms of social differentiation” (Outhwaite & Ferri, 2017, p. 413). This social differentiation is deeply related to educational inequality and “inequalities in participation” (Brown et al., 2005) as seen with the case of Australia.
IB education can prepare students for post-secondary education. However, further discussion and action among stakeholders to address concerns and negative outcomes of the current program, including educational inequality, and especially “inequalities in participation”, is needed.

Author

• Yuko Ida, Educational Foundations at University of Hawaii at Manoa