The Youth Advisory Council brings together IB students and recent alumni from all IB programs (PYP, MYP, CP, and DP) around the world to contribute directly to conversations about the future of IB education.
Council members work with IB teams and leaders, connect with the wider student community and bring different experiences and perspectives into decisions that affect young people.
What is the Youth Advisory Council?
The Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is a 12-member advisory body of the International Baccalaureate.
Members are current IB students and recent alumni across all IB programs (PYP, MYP, CP, and DP) around the world. The inaugural 2025-27 cohort serves for two years and advises strategy work across the organisation.
The Council was established to make youth perspectives a more structural part of how the IB listens, learns and develops its initiatives.
Its work focuses on three broad areas:
YAC members contribute insights and ideas that can help IB programmes respond to the experiences and needs of young people around the world.
The YAC helps strengthen links between IB young people and education partners, communities and opportunities beyond their immediate school environment.
Members contribute to IB discussions, events and thought leadership so that the experiences of young people are represented alongside those of educators, school leaders and other stakeholders.
A seat within the IB's advisory structure
The Youth Advisory Council sits alongside other formal IB advisory bodies.
That matters because youth participation is most meaningful when it is connected to the places where decisions, programmes and priorities are being shaped.
The Council's terms of reference form part of the IB's formal governance framework, alongside bodies including the Education Advisory Council and School Leadership Advisory Council.
Listening beyond the Council
Twelve people cannot represent every experience across the IB community.
Part of the Council's role is therefore to create opportunities to listen to other young people and bring those perspectives into its work.
In August 2026, the Council held its first Open Mic Night, inviting IB students globally to discuss four areas:
- equity and access
- programme and curriculum
- student wellbeing
- communications and outreach.
More than 500 IB students participated in the event, according to IBlieve's event reflection.
This kind of activity enables the YAC to act as a bridge between individual student experiences and wider IB organisational conversations.
Learning through participation
Council membership is also an opportunity to build capabilities through experience.
Members work across different countries, cultures and perspectives and receive development around areas including:
- safeguarding
- navigating complexity
- constructive dialogue
- collaboration
- communicating ideas within institutional settings.
This fits Generation Global's wider approach of creating pathways where young people can learn through participation, contribution and community rather than following a single prescribed journey.
Building a legacy
More than 1,400 young people from 92 countries applied for the inaugural council, from which 12 members were selected.
The group first came together in person at the IB Global Conference in The Hague in October 2025, where members met IB leadership and began their term of work.