Victorian school ditches VCE in favour of International Baccalaureate

A Melbourne high school is ditching the VCE in favour of the International Baccalaureate.

Preshil High School in Kew is dropping the VCE because it is ‘too competitive’. 

Jennifer Buckingham, Research Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies specialising in education, said students’ marks in the VCE are ranked and distributed across a bell curve. 

‘The difference between the VCE and, even the HSC in NSW, and the IB, there is theoretically no limit on the number of students who can achieve the top score.’ 

‘In that sense, it’s less competititve. It’s certainly not in the sense that it’s less rigorous because it’s quite a difficult program.’

Ms Buckingham said there are only 163 schools out of 9000 in Australia offering the IB. 

LISTEN: Jennifer Buckingham explains the IB to Tom Elliott