Delhi Government & IB Board Sign Agreement for New State Board

Vinod Kakumanu
Sept. 1, 2021, 1:03 p.m.

An agreement has been signed between the Delhi Government and the International Baccalaureate (IB) board for the newly formed Delhi Board of School Education (DBSE), according to which the IB board will be providing support to DBSE in curriculum and teachers’ training. With this agreement signing, IB Board will become the knowledge partner of DBSE.

The state government had announced the setting up of the DBSE earlier this year. The Chief Minister, Mr Kejriwal, said that they would be starting with 30 government schools in the beginning, and private schools can also get affiliated.

During the signing-in ceremony, Mr Kejriwal said, “IB curriculum is a pedagogy of the highest international standards... it is a massive opportunity for students. The kind of education which kids of the richest of the families dream of will be made accessible to the underprivileged students of Delhi.” He was accompanied by the deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Delhi Chief Secretary Vijay Dev, and other education department officials.

As per the state government’s plan, IB will provide the curriculum framework, and the content based on the framework will be prepared by the Directorate of Education (DoE). The teachers of the initial 30 DBSE schools will be trained, and assessment models for students will be developed by the international experts. Stefanie Leong, Head of Development and Recognition, Asia-Pacific, IB said, “This partnership entails that IB development workshops provide opportunities to engage in rich learning experiences for the school leaders and educators and serve as a tool to help schools meet professional requirements of the highest quality.”

A circular released by the DoE stated that aptitude tests, scheduled from August 23-29, would be the basis for admissions to these schools. The globalised teaching-learning process was welcomed by several government school principals.