CP
The Career-related Programme (CP) is the fourth International Baccalaureate programme (along with the PYP, MYP and DP) and it is aimed at students entering the last two years of Secondary School who have a particular career path in mind. The CP allows students to specialise and dedicate themselves to an area of learning that they know they want to pursue. “For CP students, DP courses provide the theoretical underpinning and academic rigour of the programme; the career-related study further supports the programme’s academic strength and provides practical, real-world approaches to learning; and the CP core helps them to develop skills and competencies required for lifelong learning.” (IBO, 2020)
The programme is illustrated by a circular model with the IB Learner profile in its center consistent with other IB programmes surrounded by the four components of the core at its centre.
The four core components of the CP are:
Personal and Professional Skills (PPS) "Throughout the Personal and professional skills (PPS) course, students develop a range of intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, critical and ethical thinking and intercultural understanding. These skills are transversal, meaning they can be applied in a variety of contexts appropriate to both their personal and professional growth. The course also connects and deepens the learning and skills developed in the other CP core components and programme elements.” (IBO, 2025a)
PPS is timetabled into two blocks and one Discovery time per fortnight and its curriculum consists of learning such skills and topics as Ethics; Intercultural understanding; CV and cover letter; Job interviews; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at workplace. Students are required to record their work in their PPS portfolio and complete relevant tasks and assessments.
Language and Cultural Studies (LCS)
“Language and cultural studies (LCS) invites students to better understand and expand their linguistic and cultural repertoires, and imagine how they could further engage with a range of linguistic and cultural groups. As partners in inquiry, students and teachers explore their linguistic and cultural repertoires and reflect on them in the context of local and global communities.” (IBO, 2025b)
LCS is timetabled into one teacher-guided block and two independent learning blocks per fortnight. Students choose one of three areas of exploration (career, community, or personal) as the focus of their journey, depending on their interests, passions and goals. Students are required to record their work in their LCS learning journal and complete relevant tasks and assessments.
Community Engagement (CE)
“Community engagement (CE) offers opportunities for students to learn in, from and with communities as well as to apply knowledge and skills acquired in other areas of learning.CE invites students to engage with communities in dialogic, reciprocal reflective and reflexive ways, and to expand their understanding from a personal to a relational to a systems dimension. Students engage in an inquiry-based process of exploring and preparing, relating and acting, evaluating and sharing that is aimed at responding to relevant opportunities and challenges identified both by and with communities.” (IBO, 2025c)
The students are expected to work on CE through 18 months of the course over Y12-13 and complete a minimum of three CE experiences (at least one of them being linked to their career pathway) and one CE team project. The CE Coordinator will be advising students throughout the process, and students are required to maintain notes of their planning and participation in their CE learning journal.
Reflective Project (RP)
“The reflective project (RP) is an in-depth body of work focused on an ethical dilemma in a career-related area. It is developed and reflected upon over an extended period of time; as a product of the students’ own initiative. The RP promotes in-depth and critical research, reflection and reflexivity, professional communication skills, intellectual discovery and creativity through the exploration of a career-related dilemma while considering the impact on, and perspectives of, others through current, historical, local and global contexts. Students practise self- and critical-reflexivity to arrive at a personal position on the dilemma.” (IBO, 2025d)
Students are required to identify, analyse, discuss and evaluate an ethical dilemma associated with an issue from their career-related studies and produce a 3000-word written essay or a combination of written work with audio/video material in addition to a 1000-word reflection piece. Students will be provided an introduction session in the second semester of Year 12 and the supervisor will be allocated to support students during this process till its completion in the first semester of Year 13.
MYP & CP
The Career-related Programme builds on the skills, concepts and attitudes embedded in the Middle Years Programme. The MYP interdisciplinary and conceptual approach to teaching and learning, framed by global contexts, provides excellent grounding for the CP Personal and professional skills course. A student’s fulfilment of the MYP Service as Action commitment should provide the fundamental skills and attitudes for participation in the CP Community Engagement. Also, the skills developed in the MYP Personal Project serve our students well in the Reflective Project, the major independent project piece in the CP. International mindedness and intercultural understanding are further promoted in the CP Language and cultural studies building on prior learning and experiences from MYP.
DP & CP
Timetable and curriculum coverage
CP students have the same DC lessons times, learning team support and timetable as the DP students. They attend DP lessons jointly with DP students. In addition, CP students have to follow a career-related course with one of our partner-providers. They will have more study blocks and they should use these blocks to study for their career-related course.
Options for Career-related studies (CRS) courses
Lesson time with partner-providers of CRS courses
Term dates of the partner-providers are different to the DC term dates, and students are expected to attend all classes according to the partners’ term dates. There might be CRS classes ongoing during DC holidays, and students should attend them and continue working on the course work. There will also be periods during the DC school year when there are no CRS classes, so students at school will have a lighter workload in these periods.
For some HK-located partner-providers, students will have face-to-face classes during the week (in the afternoon/evening) offsite. Days and times of these classes will be confirmed at the beginning of the school year and may vary through the year depending on timetable and availability of the partner schools’ teachers and facilities. Students might have to miss some of their DP classes to attend classes with the partner-providers.
Classes with the other partner schools are online and might take place outside of the school hours. Students are required to attend these classes and actively participate in discussion forums. Students will have dedicated study blocks during the school day to work on assignments on the e-learning platform of partner-providers.
The expectations of partner-providers in terms of work produced could be close to the first year university level. Students might be working alongside students who are older and/or more experienced. Students need to produce high volumes of quality work frequently and independently. Therefore, CP students will need to be extremely self-motivated and dedicated as well as have maturity and confidence to deal with the load and strict attendance and deadline requirements, make effective use of all of the non-contact periods in school, and be prepared to proactively seek from the professors if needed.
References
IBO. (2025a). Career-related Programme
Personal and professional skills guide (first teaching 2025). Retrieved from MyIB portal on 12 August 2025.
IBO. (2025b). Career-related Programme
Language and cultural studies guide (first teaching 2025). Retrieved from MyIB portal on 12 August 2025.
IBO. (2025c). Career-related Programme
Community engagement guide (first teaching 2025). Retrieved from MyIB portal on 12 August 2025.
IBO. (2025d). Career-related Programme
Reflective project guide (first teaching 2025). Retrieved from MyIB portal on 12 August 2025.