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Editor's note: The following is taken from the Facebook status of Alina Amir, a Teach for Malaysia teacher with her permission. In these times of plunging education standards, it is both heartwarming and at the same time heartwrenching to see such determined, bright individuals struggle with educating our children. One must wonder however, how much real change can a few teachers make? The education system requires structural reform from the inside especially. Good things to ponder while reading this excellent 'confession'. So here’s a public confession: After 4 months into teaching, I came back from a class this morning, put my books on my desk, coolly walked to the ladies, and broke down; with tears, sobs, frantically fanned myself with my hands thinking that could help calm me down, the whole enchilada. Something I have not done for a very long time.  In the last four months, I could have cried when I had kids ca lling me a prostitute in mandarin, or that time when a kid ...

Well, Tony's previous post on the IB programme was way back here in 2006 and since then the IB programme has really taken off with more and more Malaysians opting for it as an alternative to the A-levels programme/ SAM etc.  I had the good fortune of being a scholarship recipinet of the IB Scholarship at the International School of Kuala Lumpur, which was the first IB school in Malaysia stretching way back to 1989. The IB at ISKL has beena wonderful experience and I will write more on the ISKL scholarship soon, in the meantime if you are interested you can read more here . In the course of the next two weeks, I will be covering various aspects of the IB diploma in a series of articles including: History of the IB diploma The general structure of the IB diploma Some benefits of the IB diploma Some pitfalls of the IB diploma Compare it to A-Levels Recognition worldwide in terms of university acceptances Who I would recommend the IB to Today I will be discussing the general structure ...