S’pore among best in IB despite dip in performance
Kai Sunderman, who specialised in Theatre at The School of the Arts, was among the school's top-scorers in the 2014 IB Diploma examination. Photo: Ooi Boon Keong
SINGAPORE — Singapore students continued to rank among the highest globally in the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma examination last year, despite a dip in the national average score to 36.43 points.
The average score in the Asia-Pacific region was 33.14 points, while the global average was 29.94, out of a perfect score of 45.
In 2013, students here topped the Asia-Pacific region in the examination for a fourth consecutive year, scoring a national average of 36.53 points.
When asked by TODAY, the International Baccalaureate Organisation office here declined to reveal Singapore’s ranking among the 22 countries in the region last year. However, the Republic was ahead of Hong Kong and nations such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.
More than 2,000 students took the examination in Singapore last year and, of these, 66 topped their schools with a perfect score of 45. Across the country, 96.8 per cent earned a passing grade of 24 points or more.
Close to 450 students from Anglo-Chinese School (Independent) took the examination last year, with 34 of them achieving a full score of 45 — up from last year’s 32. On average, the students scored 41.3 points.
Hwa Chong International School has four students scoring 44 points. Out of the 91 students who sat for the examination, 18 per cent achieved at least 40 points, and 32 per cent scored 38 or higher points. One out of two students attained a score of 36 points, with almost all, 98.9 per cent, being awarded the IB Diploma. Sixteen students of the cohort were also awarded the Bilingual Diploma.
SJI Senior School, among the 21 institutions here that offer the IB Diploma Programme, produced its pioneer cohort of IB diploma holders last year. All of its 76 students who took the examination passed, with an average score of 39.4 points.
Three students outshone their peers with high scores of 44 points. However, despite an outstanding performance, one of them — 18-year-old Cheong Su-Yen — was disappointed that she lost a point for history, a subject close to her heart. Still, she intends to study the subject at London School of Economics.
Su-Yen, an only child whose father is a lawyer and mother a lecturer, said she chose the IB diploma programme as it offers continuous assessment.
“I’m quite a consistent worker, so that appealed to me. (It takes) a bit of the pressure off. Because you never know what can happen on your exam day — like for my history paper, obviously, something wasn’t quite right,” said the avid horse rider and member of the national equestrian team.
At the School of the Arts (SOTA), the third batch of IB diploma students graduated with an average score of 38.89.
Kai Sunderman, a theatre student, was surprised by his result of 44 points, after losing a point for Literature. “I was not at all expecting it, because Maths is my downfall,” he said.
Kai had transferred to SOTA from Broadrick Secondary School at the end of his first year to explore theatre.
It was an unexpected move, which came after he had been placed — against his will — in the drama club in the secondary school and fell in love with the stage.
Prior to that, he had had no theatre experience.
The 18-year-old, who is of German and Chinese descent, plans to pursue a liberal arts degree in America.
