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When I was researching the elite school Sankofa International College in Ghana, I found that they use the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) for teaching instead of following the National Curriculum in Ghana. Giving up using the national curriculum means that Sankofa International College gives up the opportunity for their students to enter higher education in Ghana, even though they are a high school located in Ghana. As a result, I am curious about what are the benefits for Sankofa International College to choose the IBDP curriculum. 

According to Ghana’s national curriculum, high school students require to take “a Core curriculum consisting of English Language, Integrated Science, Mathematics, and Social Studies” and “three or four Elective subjects” from “Sciences, Arts (social sciences and humanities), Vocational (visual arts or home economics), Technical, Business, or Agriculture” (U.S. EMBASSY IN GHANA, 2017). According to International Baccalaureate Organization, the IBDP curriculum includes three higher-level courses and three lower-level courses in Languages, Mathematics, Social Science, Natural Science, and Arts, the “DP core, comprising theory of knowledge (TOK), creativity, activity, service (CAS) and the extended essay”(IBO, 2023). Comparing the curriculum design differences between Ghana’s national curriculum and IBDP, the course TOK stands out to me. 

TOK is a course that is “composed almost entirely of questions”, emphasizing “different ways of knowing” and “different kinds of knowledge”(IBO, 2023). From the interviews with the students and alumni from Sankofa International College, almost every one of them mentioned TOK at some point during the interview, showing the big influence of TOK on those elite students. I selected some common ideas around TOK from the interviews and identified main goals for TOK as follows.