What is the difference between CBSE and IB board?

What is the difference between CBSE and IB board - All of us have come across memes and jokes on the internet about parents trying to enroll their pre-schoolers and adolescents in coaching institutes for medical and engineering exam preparations. Although just for fun, these jokes stem from the fact that Indian parents have been getting more and more aware and alert about the need for quality education for their children right from their growing years.

Today, more parents are open to professions other than that of doctors and engineers; they know about educational boards other than CBSE and state boards. So, CBSE vs IB: What exactly is the difference?

In this article, we would enlist a comparison of the CBSE board and IB board. So, if you are trying to choose an education board, this is the best place to do your research at. 

Brief Overview of CBSE and IB board

CBSE: Founded in 1929, Central Board of Secondary Education is a Government of India Education Board. It is approved by the National Council of Education and Research Training (NCERT). Originally, in 1929, it was started as the Board of High School and Intermediate Education and it started functioning as CBSE in 1962. CBSE promotes both public and private schools and regular and private students.

IB: The International Baccalaureate was founded in 1968 by the International Baccalaureate Organization. It is a non-profit organization located in Geneva, Switzerland. IB is an international education board which comes with the flexibility to tailor the curriculum according to the culture and the context of students. 

Note: The data in the table given above is based upto class 10 and has been taken from the website of CBSE and IB.

What is the difference between CBSE and IB board?

We will now check the parametres in a little more detail to understand the difference between CBSE and IB board.

1. Medium of Instruction: While CBSE promotes education in English and Hindi, IB schools provide full teaching and assessment in English, Spanish and French. Hindi is offered as a second language in IB schools and students either with some experience with Hindi or whose mother tongue is Hindi opts for it.

2. Fee: CBSE board schools charge a fee that varies depending on the kind of city they are in, the kind of facilities that they provide and the population that they are catering to. Owing to the kind of global education that IB imparts, the fee structure in IB schools are significantly higher than other boards.

3. Scholarships: CBSE board awards several scholarships under various schemes. Details can be found on CBSE’ s website. Some CBSE schools at their individual levels also provide scholarships to their students. Meanwhile, IB schools also provide scholarships to their students based on academic and non academic merits.

4. Availability: CBSE schools can be easily found across the nation. In fact there are 200+ CBSE schools outside India in 26 countries. On the other hand, 5,500 IB schools in 160 countries are present globally. This includes 205 IB world schools in most major cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and so on.

5. Exposure: Although the CBSE schools clearly outnumber the IB schools in nationwide presence, the exposure that CBSE board schools can provide its students is limited to the Indian facets. At the same time, IB school students are exposed to global facets of its curriculum designed to prepare global citizens.

6. Syllabus: The syllabus in CBSE curriculum is based on NCERT which caters to the course curriculum designed for senior secondary and colleges in India. The syllabus in IB board is designed to cater to global citizens, students prepared for education anywhere across the globe.

Note: This, in no way, means that students in CBSE schools cannot study in abroad and students in IB cannot pursue studies in India and vice versa.

7. Range of subjects: Under the CBSE curriculum, Social Science covers History, Geography and Civics; Science covers Physics, Chemistry and Biology; two languages are to be studied which have 37 foreign and Indian language options to choose from. Under the IB curriculum, some flexibility is provided for students to cater to their local needs. Overall, the students are taught all eight subjects not only to be used in the school but beyond, in the real world.

8. Exam evaluation: CBSE follows Curriculum Aligned Competency Based Test, following annual paper - pen mode of exams with relevant internal assessments which comprise of practicals, project works, etc. IB exam evaluation consists of school based assessments where tasks are created and marked by classroom teachers; external assessments are for the students in the final year of the programme where they develop an independent, truly personal and creative personal project - externally validated by the IB - as an overview of their ability to conduct independent work.

9. Learning approach: CBSE highlights pedagogical practices that are child centric - providing them autonomy in context-based learning. Following the proverb ‘Teach the child not the subject as facts will be soon outdated’, CBSE follows a multidisciplinary and flexible pedagogy and multisensory learning to address the need of all the learners, to make learning more joyful, effective and suited to the learning styles of all learners, as far as possible. 

10. Pass percentage: While CBSE had a whooping pass percentage of 94% , the global pass percentage of IBDP stood at 85% in the year 2022.

We, at Jagran Josh, understand how important making right choices in the field of education is. We hope that you have enough information to compare the the difference between CBSE and IB board and make informed decisions about the two education boards. 

Also read: CBSE vs ICSE - TOP 5 Differences