Boyd Roberts's Blog (42)

Thoughts on the pandemic: None of us will be safe until everyone is safe.

As the Covid pandemic continues, different countries find themselves in very different positions. In some countries everyday life is quite normal, although in some cases low infection rates are ensured by very restricted international travel to or from the country. The UK experienced a second wave of infections earlier this year and deaths are among the highest per…

Beyond the personal to the “political” – a personal perspective

The aim of the IGCA is to promote the development of individual students as global citizens, and the recognition of this by their peers and school.

As you know, the focus on this development is on three areas:

• Developing greater knowledge and understanding of the diversity of backgrounds and views among people, in the section

Understanding other…

Walter Arevalo of the Academia Británica Cuscatleca (ABC), El Salvador, reports that schools in the country have been closed for face-to-face teaching since 11 March 2020. But IGCA activities at ABC continue.

“The IGCA meetings are taking place online every Tuesday and participants are very enthusiastic with the activities we hold each session. We also promote activities through an abcigca instagram account, which was a…

The issues relating to Black Lives Matter which have come to prominence recently are very relevant to the IGCA. The section Understanding other outlooks and cultures calls for IGCA participants to find out more about how people view the world differently. There are many books and articles on racism, and many IGCA participants may wish to explore some of these resources. But Understanding other outlooks and cultures involves participants having direct…

Modified arrangements for IGCA Awards during the Covid-19 pandemic

Many schools have been closed or considerably scaled back during this continuing Covid-19 pandemic. This has disrupted external examinations, and examining bodies such as the International Baccalaureate and GCE A level examination boards have put in place exceptional arrangements. Students are receiving awards on the basis of work completed up to the time of school closure, and without external…

Geetanjali Dhull of Pathways World School, Aravali, India reports the number of awards made this year in Middle School:

Bronze level    50

Silver level       21

Gold level        33

In total, Middle School at PWS has made a total of 1307 awards since it introduced the programme in 2013-14:

Bronze 814, Silver 360, Gold 133

Completion of the programme and the award process has been held up by school closure for…

Covid 19 – an example of man’s dysfunctional relationship with the natural world

One of the strongest points to emerge during the Covid 19 crisis is the relationship of humans to the natural world.

Covid 19 is thought to have crossed the species boundary from a wild mammal to man. As it wreaks its devastating and tragic impact on human populations, we have responded by going into lockdown.

One of the few upsides of the pandemic is the resurgence of nature –…

Walter Arevalo from Academia Británica Cuscatleca sent through some photos of activities in November 2019 by IGCA participants at his school.

Walter’s photos of IGCA participants…

John Labor of the Arabian Pearl Gulf School, Bahrain got in touch with news of the programme in his school:

“The pandemic indeed disrupted our programme. Our collection of plastic bottles was not disposed of as intended. Children’s donations await delivery to charity. Projects are stalled. But safety and wellbeing of our participants remain paramount, so we are contented with our current accomplishment. We continue to encourage participants to pursue IGCA activities at home…

Plastic use – digging behind the figures

A recent study in Scientific Advances has highlighted that some figures on plastic use by countries can be misleading.

The Guardian reported that “Previous work had suggested…

Plastic use – digging behind the figures

A recent study in Scientific Advances has highlighted that some figures on plastic use by countries can be misleading.

The Guardian reported that “Previous work had suggested…

While studying the University of Bristol's excellent free online course on global citizenship a section concerned Diversity and Difference and this got me thinking. This is of relevance to how we work with IGCA participants to understand other cultures and outlooks.

Diversity recognises different types, often identified by the observer rather than the people themselves. The ethnic groups used in censuses and surveys usually require a person to select which of…

These are indeed strange times, as the world adapts to living with Covid 19. 

Mulling over the health crisis, against a background of work on education for global citizenship, a few things occurred to me. 

1. It really is a global world

The spread of the Covid 19 virus has demonstrated the extent and complexity of our interconnections across the whole globe. A virus infection starting in one city has since spread very quickly to every country,…

A breakthrough moment



I remember a personal breakthrough moment in my awareness as a global citizen when I was filling up my car with petrol some years ago. The process of filling up a car is designed to ensure that we don’t get covered in petrol or diesel as we do it. So the nozzle of the petrol pump goes straight into the fuel tank, and we only get to actually SEE the fuel if there is a spillage. Otherwise, we depress the lever, the pump monitors our usage as…

Beyond and behind the slogans



There is no doubt that pithy, short and memorable slogans can help make a difference to our behaviour. They can also be useful in campaigns to spread a message to others.



In areas relating to global citizenship, one of the most widely used slogans is:

Reduce Reuse Recycle

Very often this slogan is accompanied by an image of some kind, such as:…

APG Bahrain started the IGCA programme at the start of the 2019-20 academic year.

Here is the latest update from APG's IGCA Coordinator John Labor.

“We are now in our end-of-term examinations and we have wrapped up some of the IGCA activities that happened during the first month before the participants concentrated on examinations.

We mentors are yet to meet to review the progress of each participant in different grade levels. They have been active in…

An updated version of the central document for the International Global Citizen's Award, the IGCA Guide 2018 has been produced.

While much of this remains unchanged from the previous version - Information for Schools (2009) - amendments that have been agreed over recent years are all included.

Also included are guidelines on Silver and Gold level projects.

The new version takes immediate effect.

Guide available at:…

 Award coordinator Ginny Bineypal sent through a report on the school’s first year of the Award.

“The International Class is a group of 23 students between 16 and 17 years old. It is the closest we have to pre IB. Many of these students have lived and studied abroad, and are interested in joining the International Baccalaureate program offered here at the school.

The school has decided to include (our own) course called Meet the World as a part of the syllabus for the class – a…

Pathma Naidu from Pathways World School, Aravali, India reports that Team IGCA joined with the PWS Global Citizens Award students in the primary section to develop a Powerpoint presentation for Earth Day, April 22nd.

This was to tell members of the Pathways community about Earth Day - and to suggest some ways in which we can take some simple actions that have environmental benefits.

The presentation is attached.

They produced a similar presentation for Earth Hour on…