IB Results: IBO Announces Review
The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) has announced that it is reviewing what it terms ‘extraordinary cases’ in the recently published IB Diploma results. This follows a global outcry from a substantial number of students who believe that they received marks well below what they should have expected. Many of them took to social media to highlight their plight and two petitions were also launched calling for re-marks, one of which has received more than 17,000 signatures.
In a letter to IB Heads of Schools and Coordinators, Siva Kumari, Director General of the IBO acknowledges that ‘this year we hear the anxiety around the May 2020 results. The emotional well-being of our students and our community is paramount in our decision making and remains the highest priority.’
She continues:
“ In addition to the usual request for appeals process, we want to work with schools to review extraordinary cases. We have identified three priority areas for review: (i) candidate level discrepancy (ii) subject level discrepancy (iii) whole cohort discrepancy. We are working to develop a process which will enable us to have a conversation with each school regarding their concerns at the cohort and individual school level.
“More details on the specifics of that process will be sent out by midweek. We will prioritise cases that are linked to progression to support with university admissions and dates of admissions. We are committing to a rigorous review of these cases. We cannot guarantee higher grades as a result of the review. Where the marks are deemed reasonable grades will not go down as a result of this process.
The news will be warmly welcomed by students, parents and schools. Some students have reported discrepancies of up to 12 marks from their predicted grades with many also speaking of withdrawn offers from universities. It is not clear yet what has happened but there have been some suggestions that the algorithm used to scale marking based on predicted grades and historical data may have produced anomalies in individual and school assessment.
WhichSchoolAdvisor.com is continuing to track developments and will post updates as they happens. Any student, parent or school affected by this who would like to comment on this story can get in touch with us [email protected]
