What is the International Option Baccalaureate (OIB)?

The International Option Baccalaureate (OIB) is the French general Baccalaureate with an additional international option.

Students preparing the OIB are required to study in international sections for the last two years of high school.

International sections are opened at all school levels: primary, secondary school or higher education in France and within the network of French schools abroad.

They welcome French and Foreign students and offer them a bilingual and bicultural education as well as specific courses:

• Foreign language in primary school
• Foreign language and literature in secondary and high school
• History and geography in French in the other language in secondary and high school, taught partly in French and partly in the foreign language at secondary and high school levels
• Mathematics taught in the Chinese section
• OIB in numbers
• 478 international sections in 284 schools and high schools in September 2016 (France or within the network for French schools abroad)

16 languages and cultures are represented with sections (Arabic, Brazilian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English – British and American – German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish).

The International Option Baccalaureate should not be confused with the International Baccalaureate (IB), also called the Geneva Baccalaureate.

The International Baccalaureate, created by the International Baccalaureate Office of Geneva, is a foreign diploma (which does not give automatic access to higher education in France).