Why I back the baccalaureate

Remember choosing your A-levels? Were you really ready to narrow your future to just three subjects at 16? The IB’s strength lies not only in its breadth of six subjects but in the way it teaches you to think. In an age of artificial intelligence, when information is abundant and cheap, success will belong to those who can think critically, write with clarity and handle numbers with confidence in the real world. That’s the distinction of the IB. It educates minds, not just fills them.

I know its value first-hand. I was a product of the IB. As a teenager, I didn’t yet know what my calling might be. But I knew maths mattered in our digital world as did learning another language. Both would have been dropped had I taken A-levels. The IB’s broader syllabus kept those doors open and better prepared me for a life of curiosity, service and adaptability.

The IB isn’t just about studying more subjects. It teaches students to join the dots – to see how ideas connect across disciplines in a fast-changing, data-driven world. Every student studies maths, science, humanities, the arts and a language, and is challenged to think critically, serve their community and produce an extended research essay. It’s a qualification designed not just to pass exams, but to prepare thinkers for a competitive world. That’s why British universities generally welcome the qualification over A-levels.

Business leaders too prefer the IB, as they are looking for people who are adaptable, curious and globally aware. That’s exactly what the IB produces. Its graduates are three times more likely to attend a top 20 university, 40% more likely to achieve a first or upper-second-class degree, and significantly more likely to stay in higher education.

So why cut it? The IB costs the taxpayer just £2.5m a year. A fraction of the annual £100bn education budget. For this tiny investment, we enable thousands of ambitious state-school students to access a world-class education. One that’s respected globally and drives social mobility.

Without this funding, the IB will survive only in private schools. That means a two-tier system where the broadest, most forward-looking qualification becomes the preserve of the wealthy – the opposite of “levelling up”. It would undo years of progress since Tony Blair’s Labour government promised an IB school in every local authority.

Yes, delivering the IB is demanding. But teachers go the extra mile because they see the value. That commitment requires proper funding. If the IB is dropped from the state sector, we don’t just deprive students of opportunity; we weaken Britain itself. Our future competitiveness depends on a workforce that can think broadly, work internationally and solve problems creatively. That’s the IB advantage. And it’s one we abandon at our peril.

Invest in education, and you invest in the nation’s economic strength, its intellect and its values. And in its future. That’s what the IB does. For the price of a rounding error in the education budget, the government could sustain one of the most rigorous, globally respected qualifications available to young people.

To scrap it would be short-sighted, self-defeating. And a betrayal of Britain’s ambition to lead in the modern world.

Tobias Ellwood is a former Conservative government minister

Photograph by Keith Morris/Alamy