News and Events
The international baccalaureate diploma program is familiar to HK students. However, are you aware that the IB is piloting an alternative pathway for future students?
The new pathway - Systems Transformation Pathway: Leadership for Just Futures - is designed to equip students with the leadership skills and systems-thinking mindset necessary to tackle some of the most complex and urgent global challenges of our time.
These include questions such as how to feed eight billion people on a warming planet, how to restore and protect biodiversity, how to transition away from polluting energy sources in an equitable manner, and how to respond to mass displacement and migration driven by conflict, climate change, and disasters.
The pathway is not just a new course or a new approach to learning - it is an action-oriented program aiming to empower graduates to understand root causes and respond to global challenges.
How does the new Pathway structure differ from the current program?
Traditionally, the IB diploma program includes six subjects (usually three at the Higher Level and three at the Standard Level) and the IB Core (the Extended Essay, Theory of Knowledge, and Creativity, activity, and service). In the new pathway piloted, a student still takes the IB Core, three Higher Level subjects, and one Standard Level subject. Two standard-level courses have been replaced by the new course, Systems Transformation, one of the program's most substantial components. A student completing the new pathway will graduate with a full IB Diploma and all the benefits of a globally recognized credential.
Four key areas in the Systems
Transformation course
Fundamental to this pathway is its focus on four key areas critical to global survival and well-being: food, biodiversity, energy, and migration. These are not approached as stand-alone subjects; they are interconnected systems that students will study through classroom learning, self-directed research, and collaborative projects.
Curriculum and approach
One of the most distinctive features of the pathway is that it replaces the traditional, exam-based education model with an action-oriented, project-based approach. Students will engage in projects that require them to apply their knowledge to real-world problems, working collaboratively to devise solutions that can have a tangible impact.
There will be two main project reports - a self-directed individual project taking place in the student's "home" context or within a community, as well as a collaborative intervention, which is a group project for all students within each impact area, focusing on a complex adaptive challenge in a local context. Students will also be required to do a case study and a portfolio.
Examples of projects include addressing the energy-intensive underground water pumping required to sustain trees by installing solar panels or developing a sticker album of endangered animals from a specific region to engage children in their local ecosystem.
The pioneering cohort and looking ahead
This new pathway is piloted at the UWC Atlantic College and the United World College of South East Asia. At Atlantic College, the inaugural cohort of 24 students began their journey in 2023 and will graduate in 2025, with the second cohort of 56 students already following in their footsteps. United World College of South East Asia has been added to the pilot in 2024. As this pilot continues and evolves, the intention is for all UWC Atlantic students to have access to the pathway by 2027 and expand to more schools worldwide, offering more students the opportunity to engage with this transformative model.
Education, at its best, should be a force for change. The Systems Transformation Pathway is encouraging us - whether as parents or educators - to reflect on how we would like to shape our future generation's education. It would be interesting to observe whether some of the IB schools in Hong Kong will be offering the new pathway shortly.
