IB Asia Pacific Newsletter

April - June 2006

Message from the Regional Director

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the second quarter 2007 enewsletter from IB Asia Pacific. As many of you near the end of another academic year, we wish you all a safe and happy break. We especially extend to your graduating class, who have just completed the Diploma examinations, our best wishes for success in all their future endeavours. For the antipodeans going into winter, we look forward to joining you in Queensland for the AAIBS Conference.

The Regional Office has had a busy few months, as always!! The 2007 Workshop Calendar is now up on the public website! We are getting quicker at this. Our first Teachers Convention focusing on Language learning and bilingual issues was a great success. We are planning now to offer a further Teachers Convention next year – with a focus on Information Literacy across the programmes. Our sincere thanks to the many respondents to the ”call for papers” for the Hanoi Regional Conference. Details are now posted for early bird registrations for the Conference and other events for the remainder of 2007.

The Language Convention provided an excellent opportunity for a number of key IBCA staff to visit Singapore and contribute to this event. Monique Seefried, the President of the Council of Foundation also took the opportunity to visit Asia Pacific and our thanks to the schools in Jakarta and Singapore who supported her visit (further details in the Projects pages)

The Asia Pacific Regional Advisory Council met in Geneva in late April in conjunction with the Council of Foundation meetings. The CoF meetings provided a moving forum for a farewell and tribute to the enormous contribution made by George Walker over the past six years as Director General. I am sure that you will all join with the Regional Office in wishing George, a long and healthy retirement but nonetheless we look forward to welcoming him back to the region whenever that proves possible!! Some keynotes, George.

Some key points of the RAC discussion were the establishment of a research agenda for the Asia Pacific region with an emphasis on longitudinal studies and comparative analyses to inform University and Government recognition. A second key area of discussion was promoted by the tabling of a position paper for the IB’s future work in China. Dr. Indu Shahani gave an overview of the work and focus of the Indian Development Group. Our sincere thanks to Professor Zhou Nan Zhao for the contribution he has made as Chair of the IB Asia-Pacific RAC and the commitment he had made to the IB over the years. A new Chair will be elected at the October meeting of the RAC.

A second meeting of the Indonesian Development Group took place in Jakarta on 19 May. Key outcomes from these discussions will be a concerted effort from the IB to protect its trademarks and branding in Indonesia, some definitive strategies and goals for working with the Equivalence office and key University Admissions staff and concrete plans to consolidate some of the key “unofficial” translated documents into some commonly agreed IB sanctioned translations. The organisation has a defined process and we will be working with schools in both Japan and Indonesia over the next year to have common key documents with quality translations accessible.

My own schedule has proved ever hectic this year with the closer working of the Directors Leadership Team necessitating more frequent meetings as the Organisation under the leadership of Jeff Beard moves to more business-sensitive models for capacity planning. Over the past year the organisation has undertaken a comprehensive service costing exercise. In terms of the functions of the regional office this has resulted in a clear indication that the Regional Office has not been meeting costs associated with delivering services in several areas most noticeably in the facilitation of in-school workshops (for PYP and MYP) and secondly with authorisation fees particularly with respect to the Diploma authorisation process. Some adjustments will be made to fees in these areas from 1 September.

Many thanks to all the vigilant schools who followed up on my request to report infringements of IB copyright or branding. (This is an ongoing request!) A group has been formed within the organisation to look at the whole management of intellectual property.

A sincere thank you again to the large number of schools and teachers in the region that have continued to support our work in recent months, by volunteering to serve on committees / development groups/ RHRC or by hosting workshops, releasing teachers as WSLs or in facilitating our work with Universities and Governments.

Judith Guy, Regional Director

Email: ibap@ibo.org

News from Publications

Please read the latest publications news [86.9 kb PDF]

Staff Changes

In terms of meeting the ever growing needs of schools in the region, the Regional Office has been very privileged over the last couple of years to be able to build a strong team. Recent additions to the Singapore office have included Han Nguyen, Projects Assistant. Han is an IB Diploma graduate from the UWCSEA and as of last week when she was conferred with her BA, a graduate from the University of British Colombia. Rajeevani Constantine has joined us as PYP assistant whilst Jiswinder Kaur moves to a new Events/Finance support role. (Details are on the PYP page). A warm welcome to Lucinda Petroeschevsky-Mayer who has joined the Sydney office and to Vivien Ho, who has joined the Singapore office as my PA (and chief editor of this enewsletter).

Jan Cheng left the IB Asia-Pacific office in mid April to take up the challenges of Investment Banking. We sincerely thank Jan for her contribution and wish her every success in her new career.