Druga gimnazija Sarajevo
Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina · est. 1905 · StateThe Second Gymnasium of Sarajevo traces its beginning to the Mala realka of 1905, was considered the most modern and best equipped school in the city between the two world wars, and did not close even through the years of the siege. Today it is a state gymnasium running two lines at once, a national one and an international one. The international line consists of two IB programmes: the MYP in the first two years and the Diploma Programme in the last two, both taught in English. The school has run the Diploma Programme since 2000 and calls itself the first in the country to introduce it. At higher level it offers Bosnian, English, German and French, information technology in a global society, geography, economics, history, biology, chemistry and mathematics; at standard level there are also business management, psychology, computer science and physics. The sixth group, the arts, is not offered: instead pupils take a second subject from the sciences, individuals and societies or languages. The national line offers six streams, with three foreign languages on the languages stream; English, German, French and Italian are taught, and the mother tongue is chosen from Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian. Inside the national plan runs the German DSD programme: four hours of German a week for all four years and an examination at levels B2 and C1, which opens the way to German universities and counts in German companies in the country. The school has long been known for its mathematicians and runs a mathematics club for gifted pupils.
Key facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · MYP, DP · authorised programmeZfA · language examinationWhat stands behind each entry
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. The programme has been authorised since 2000. At this school: MYP (ages 11-16), DP (ages 16-19). MYP is the middle stage, ages 11 to 16. There are no exams here either; at the end an optional electronic assessment of pupils' work is possible. DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →A German federal agency. It recognises a school as a German school abroad, funds it and grants the right to award the German leaving certificate. Quality is examined by a state inspection about once every six years, and schools that pass receive the mark of an excellent German school abroad.
What the badge means for this school. The organisation grants the school the right to prepare pupils for its language examination and to sit it. That is all the entry says: the examination covers one subject, the other subjects follow whatever curriculum the school works to, and no inspection of the school as a whole stands behind it. The diploma is real and the register is public, so the entry is shown - but on its own it does not bring a school into the ranking, by the same measure as an examination centre. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →The Deutsches Sprachdiplom, the German language diploma. The federal agency ZfA grants a school the right to prepare pupils for this examination and to sit it; the conference of state education ministers oversees the work, and Germany signs the diploma. There are two levels: DSD I is B1, DSD II is C1, and the latter admits a holder to a German university without a further language examination.
What this means for this school. This is the right to run one language examination, not a school programme: the other subjects follow the national curriculum of the school's own country, and no inspection of the school as a whole stands behind the DSD. It does not lead to a German leaving certificate; that is awarded only by recognised German schools abroad, which hold a different recognition from the same agency.
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.