Demand for elite IB school programme rises in smaller Indian cities

Nearly half of the schools in the International Baccalaureate's India pipeline are located outside major metropolitan areas, according to the organisation

By Aryan Gupta

 

India’s smaller cities and towns are emerging as an unlikely engine of growth for schools offering the International Baccalaureate, an elite education program widely viewed as a pathway to universities abroad, according to executives at the Switzerland-based organisation. 

Long associated with diplomats and affluent families, the IB is expanding well beyond India’s biggest metropolitan centers, Olli-Pekka Heinonen, the organisation’s director general and Finland’s former education minister, told Bloomberg News. Nearly half of the schools the IB expects to add in India will be outside the country’s largest cities, said Ashish Trivedi, its head of South Asia and Japan.

 

 

“More and more schools in all kinds of diverse settings are becoming interested in the IB,” Trivedi said, adding that about 44 per cent of the schools in its pipeline are outside the metro cities. The curriculum is seeing growing interest from smaller Indian cities including Jaipur, Coimbatore, Surat, Madurai, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Lucknow, Nagpur and Mysuru, according to the Geneva-based nonprofit.

 

Over the past five years, the number of IB schools in India has increased to 280 from 195, a 43.6 per cent jump that has made the country one of the organisation’s fastest-growing markets. Despite the rapid growth, IB schools account for a fraction of India’s nearly 1.5 million schools. Globally, however, India is closing in on Canada, the organisation’s second-largest market with 380 schools. The US remains the largest, with more than 1,900.

 

The expansion is being driven by a boom in India’s affluent population, which Goldman Sachs Research estimates will grow to 100 million by 2027 from about 60 million in 2023, creating a larger market for premium education.

 

Many of India’s rising middle and upper-income families are looking for an alternative to the rote learning and exam-focused approach common in many domestic schools. The IB, whose programs are offered by more than 6,200 schools in over 160 countries, offers courses graded to a uniform global standard and recognised by top foreign universities. 

 

The shift also comes alongside a series of controversies over India’s local education system, including grading errors in major school-leaving exams. The scandal has prompted renewed discussion among some parents on social media about IB and other internationally-recognised curricula.

 

The IB faces significant hurdles in India, where fast economic growth has done little to narrow stark wealth disparities. Annual tuition at IB schools can be several times higher than at schools affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education, putting the program out of reach for most families. One way the organisation hopes to address that is by introducing the IB into government-run schools, an idea it is discussing with several state governments, the executives said. 

 

Even then, a shortage of qualified teachers could limit expansion. Ensuring there are enough trained educators so staffing does not become a “bottleneck” is one of the organisation’s top priorities, Heinonen said.

 

“IB can have a couple different roles in India,” he said. “One is with having more IB schools in all parts of India, offering that different alternative and option for parents. A second one is that we are also willing to collaborate with the Indian boards to improve the aspirations of Indian education policy.”