Swiss International Scientific School in Dubai is committed to providing an environment of holistic development for our students. Our responsibilities don’t end when a student leaves the classroom, and the scope of our education goes long past their graduation from the IB DP.
This is evident in the various career-related services and opportunities that we provide for our children, whether that’s giving them access to career counselors who can help them choose what to study in, or giving them workplace experience through our Work Placement Programme.
As the next milestone in our quest to provide for our students’ careers, we’ve become a candidate school for the International Baccalaureate Career-related Programme. In this article, we explore this Programme and what it means for our students’ futures.
What is the Career-Related Programme?
The IB Middle Years Programme is intended for students between the ages of 11 and 16, and for most IB schools, it prepares students for the academic rigor and open-endedness of the Diploma Programme.
However, IB World Schools that implement the Career-related Programme (CP) provide students with an alternative framework for studies that combines parts of the IB Diploma Programme with learning that is far more targeted towards career and vocational knowledge.
The CP includes a variant of the IB learner profile, creating students who are:
• Academically strong
• Skilled in a practical field
• Critical and ethical thinkers
• Self-directed
• Collaborative
• Resilient and determined
• Confident and assured
• Caring and reflective
• Inquirers
The CP Core
The Career-related Programme is highlighted by the CP core, a curriculum that focus on far more hands-on experiential learning. It aims to develop personal and professional skills that will be of great use in the workplace, especially the “soft skills” that are essential to students who will be joining the workforce of the future.
It also includes a research-driven approach towards service initiatives that are intended to help address needs in the community, as well as a Reflective Project that discusses ethical issues that students encounter in their studies about the workplace. These ensure that students will enter the workforce with a developed ethical code and sense of service that will provide for the betterment of society.
Finally, the CP core also includes a language development component. It’s no secret that multilingualism translates directly to career and financial benefits, and will help promote a wider, more diverse worldview in students. The CP core ensures that CP students will be exposed to another language besides their mother tongues, helping promote these benefits.
Diverse options for the future
With our Work Placement initiative, which has its roots in the Swiss education system’s Berufslehre apprenticeship system, as well as our candidacy for the IB CP, SISD reaffirms its commitment to developing our students in whatever ways they need. By also giving them the option between the universities preparatory-centric DP and the Career-related Programme, they have no shortage of opportunities to prepare for the future.