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While a student's personality and ability to excel in the curriculum are the main factors to consider when choosing between the International General Certificate of Secondary Education or International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme, another important factor is the quality of the school's teaching staff.

The teacher's role as a facilitator is critical in the IBMYP curriculum. How they guide or instruct students is very important.

Suppose a teacher can provide immediate feedback after listening to a student's questions or reports and guide the student in a feasible and convincing direction; it would be a great help.

Therefore, teaching the IBMYP curriculum is a test of the teacher's ability because each student's research is different, which places very high demands on the teachers.

But can every teacher be able to conduct detailed debriefings and provide good guidance in response to the varied research produced by different students? I have my reservations about this.

As such, I believe that small-class teaching is extremely important for schools offering the IBMYP program.

Only with smaller classes can teachers more clearly understand the pace and differences in each student's learning process and address students' problems more personally, as their research topics cannot be exactly the same, which is quite different from the IGCSE.

Exams are the last factor to consider when choosing between IGCSE and IBMYP.

As mentioned in previous columns, students studying the IGCSE curriculum must take public exams.

However, this is only sometimes the case for IBMYP students, depending on the school.

If a student wants to apply to top universities, such as those in the United Kingdom, United States or even in Hong Kong, having IGCSE public exam results would provide more solid academic credentials.

It is especially important to note that when applying to these places, where the academic levels of applicants are very close, having an additional academic credential, particularly IGCSE results, could be very useful.

It is also worth noting that for students who wish to apply for certain subjects, like medicine, some UK medical schools particularly consider IGCSE exam results as one of the factors in deciding whether to offer a student an interview for medicine.

For instance, Cardiff University in the UK looks at a student's IGCSE or GCSE grades to determine if they get a medicine interview, which disadvantages IBMYP students.

Moreover, high school grades are used as predicted grades when applying to UK universities. These are not the final actual grades, but having IGCSE grades can be beneficial.

Furthermore, UK universities are more familiar with the IGCSE public exam system; conversely, the IBMYP is still relatively new for them.

Therefore, in this respect, the IGCSE has the advantage.

In summary, the IGCSE curriculum is more suitable for students who need a step-by-step and traceable learning process.

Students who are proactive and enjoy self-learning and research could also choose the IGCSE curriculum, but they would miss out on inquiry-based learning.

The IBMYP program would be ideal for them, as they can learn more broadly.

Finally, there is the issue of teaching resources.

Even if teachers do not teach well in the IGCSE program, many supplementary learning resources are available, and students can quickly get help.

Conversely, IBMYP students often rely on self-study and the guidance of their school teachers.

When parents are choosing between the IGCSE or IBMYP for their children, they should consider the student's personality and ability, the quality of the school's teaching staff, the student's future learning direction, and the parents' expectations to select the most suitable learning mode that best matches their child's method of learning.