Senior Associates Barry Drake and Gez Hayden attended the International Baccalaureate (IB) Global Conference this October 4–8, 2018 at the Austria Vienna Center. Marking the 50th anniversary of the IB Organization (IBO), the event was attended by over 1800 delegates. “Shaping the Future” was its theme.
As always, the IBO produced a program of stimulating and thought provoking presentations. Opening plenary speaker IBO Director General Dr. Siva Kumari cogently suggested that international education offered by the IB could be one of the most powerful antidotes to today’s worrisome trends of “narcissistic individualism and nationalistic tribalism.”
Lord David Puttnam focused minds on how modern technology can help young inquirers to understand the why. He felt that educators tend to be good at explain how things work but less good at deconstructing the why. Creative use of modern technology can fill these important gaps. He also noted that the demand for people to fill jobs in the technology fields is growing at twice the speed at other jobs, and that the education provided by the IBO is creating the right sort of platforms to ensure IB graduates are best placed to fill the job market demands.
In addition to hour-long presentation sessions, attendees were invited to panel discussions—new this year—where participants explored the following topics: alumni shaping the future; the evolving role of teachers and their professional identity; the role of education in shaping humanity; and towards a competence based education in Spain, hosted in Spanish.
Friday evening, IB Global invited everyone for dinner and entertainment in celebration of 50 outstanding years of raising the bar in education worldwide.
Barry and Gez took the opportunity to reconnect and to connect for the first time with heads and other senior leaders from Search Associates member schools. The Vienna conference was the first at which Search Associates launched its new dual branding—Search Associates/APLi by Search Associates. This new offering drew considerable attention.
Many were pleased to learn of APLi, a new, free service that allows schools to receive, manage, and evaluate applications from any source. APLi offers a hassle-free route for candidates making an application through a school-based system—no more duplication of effort in completing application forms and no more bothering of referees multiple times.
As a result of attending the Vienna conference and talking with our team there, schools as far flung as Khartoum and Kazan have been inspired to adopt APLi as their single school-based job application portal. To see APLi in action—and if there are vacancies in your field—you could visit the websites of Khartoum International Community School and International School of Kazan, and apply there.
**Images © International Baccalaureate Organization
