8 Jan 2008 8:21:00 pm

Said Elsa, 18, formerly from Methodist Girls' School and the daughter of a company director and financial consultant: 'The IB is a challenging programme partly because we have to work hard throughout the two years.

'There are a lot of graded projects and presentations, so it feels like taking a two-year long exam.'

ACS(I) offers a six-year integrated programme from Secondary 1 through to Junior College 2 level. It takes in girls only in the final two years, when the IB diploma programme is offered.

The IB programme is considered by educators to be more broad-based than the A levels, with all students taking six subjects and Theory of Knowledge, a course that combines philosophy, religion and logical reasoning.

Students also do a research project, write a 4,000-word essay on it, and have to clock 150 hours of service to the community over two years.

The final exams make up about 70 to 80 per cent of the final grade.

The regional director of the IB Organisation in the Asia Pacific region, Ms Judith Guy, described ACS(I)'s results as 'very impressive' and said it is one of the top performing schools in the world.

The Straits Times understands that ACS(I)'s performance puts it among the top three schools worldwide, after a British school and an Australian one.

Of the 357 ACS(I) candidates, only one did not get the full diploma.

Their average score of 39.4 out of a maximum of 45 was higher than the Asia-Pacific average of 34.1 and the world average of 30.7.

More than half scored above 40, qualifying them for top universities like Harvard and Oxford.

The school's overall pass rate of 99.7 per cent was also significantly higher than the Asia-Pacific's 89.7 per cent and the world's 80.8 per cent.

Principal Ong Teck Chin was ecstatic about the results and told reporters yesterday that he literally jumped up and down when he got the good news during the weekend.

He said it had been a long journey since the school decided to offer the diploma in 2001.

'Parents and students would question us if our teachers were trained properly, there was no 10-year series to follow, and we had to do many things from scratch,' he said, before praising his teachers for working hard.

'I told the students to target getting an average of 36 points - they got 39 points. We probably have to shift the standard up for the next batch,' chuckled Dr Ong.