FAIRVIEW BANKS ON INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE PROGRAMME TO PRODUCE FUTURE LEADERS

KUALA LUMPUR, April 24 (Bernama) – In a world that is getting increasingly competitive, how does one prepare one’s children to be better equipped and better skilled?

How does one unlock the full potential of the country’s future captains of industry, professionals or even political leaders to excel in any part of the world or in any situation?

For Daniel Chian, chairman of Fairview International Schools, he believes in preparing them from young with the right curriculum, especially to develop their intellectual, personal, emotional and social skills to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalising world.

As someone who has been in the field of private education for a quarter of a century, he knows what he is saying. And he also believes that equipping students with the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme is one of the best ways to go in producing international-minded Malaysian professionals who can perform just as confidently as the others in New York or London or back home in
Kuala Lumpur.

Fairview is the only Malaysian private education group to provide all three levels of the IB programme although it is already available in many top private schools elsewhere in South-East Asia.

Why IB? "The top 100 schools in the United States run IB programmes, if it’s any indication of its effectiveness," said Chian.

The International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1968 as a non-profit educational foundation. It began when a group of talented, forward-thinking teachers at the International School of Geneva, with assistance from several other international schools, created the IB Diploma Programme to prepare students to enter university. Today, it has expanded to cater for students from as young as three to 19 years.

In an interview with Bernama, Chian said Fairview adopted the IB programme about three years ago and had seen positive results from its students, and even positive feedback from their parents.

"Many parents tell me that the attitude of their children towards their studies usually turned positive after being exposed to IB...they have become more confident, self-reliant and reflective," he said.

Chian reckoned that this could be due to the fact that IB programmes promoted the education of the whole person by emphasising on intellectual, personal, emotional and social growth. This is done by focusing on the dynamic combination of knowledge, skills, independent critical and creative thoughts, and international-mindedness.

He said Fairview also employed creative educational modules often used by corporate executives for its students even from an early age like Tony Buzan’s Mind Maps, Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats, Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, Qwizdom and the Smart Board.

Recently, Deputy Minister of Higher Education II, Saifuddin Abdullah, reminded undergraduates to be mindful of the need to be creative and innovative, adept at problem-solving and efficient in their routine work when they enter the employment market. He also said that those who were creative tended to get to
the top of their careers.

Similarly, Higher Education Minister Mohamed Khaled Nordin also told local graduates to hone their cross-cultural, interpersonal and communication skills, and language proficiency to become more marketable.

Saying that it was unwise for anyone to overlook these skills, he added that they should also possess soft skills in critical thinking and problem-solving.

Going by what Khaled and Saifuddin had emphasised, they tie in with what the IB curriculum aims to do in encouraging students to be more creative and reflective.

Chian, who started Fairview about 25 years ago, is now sitting pretty as chairman of his education group as his children – Vincent, Michael and Michelle – have come of age to help him strengthen Fairview after having graduated overseas.

"Most of our conversations at home and workplace centre on how to bring about better education to the young in Malaysia," said Chian on the role played by his children at Fairview in an interview at the Wangsa Maju campus, which opened about three years ago. The others are in Ampang, Subang, Penang and
Johor Baru. The group also has an international campus in Songkhla, southern Thailand.

According to Michelle, who heads the Fairview Subang campus, the IB
curriculum includes academic and non-academic pursuits that have an overall impact on student learning.

Therefore, the written curriculum would have to be complemented with non-academic activities like leading in organising certain activities, she explained.

Michelle said pre-university students with IB diplomas usually found that they increased their chances of being admitted to top universities like Harvard, Wharton, Cambridge and Oxford.

"As an academically-challenging and balanced programme of education, the IB Diploma prepares them for success at university and life beyond," she said.

But given IB’s strong emphasis on inter-cultural understanding and
international-mindedness, has Fairview resorted to employing more teachers from developed countries to run the programme?

Michael, the assistant director of International Affairs, said Fairview had actually developed its own teacher training programme by using talented Malaysians from the SPTM level to enable them to get a Foundation Degree (FDA) in Supporting Learning and Teaching from Roehampton University, London, and with a chance to pursue an honours degree later.

Some will be trained to teach IB programmes while some will be taught to conduct programmes leading up to the Cambridge International Examinations, of which Fairview had established a track record for excellent academic achievement with 95 per cent 'O' level passes for more than 15 years.