ITGS Prerequisite?

[TheFineObserver]

Dear IB Students,

I am an IB 1 student who was recently called down by my Guidance counselor, and told that I could NOT take ITGS as my group 3 and would be forced to take either IB History or Geo (the only other group 3 courses my school offers) because I did not have the so-called prerequisite for the course. I know several of my other friends and collegues have also been denied for the exact same reason.

However, the official IB website, ibo.org , states that there is "no particular background in terms of specific subjects for national or international qualifications is expected or required, and no prior knowledge of ITGS is necessary for students" although familiarity with such would be an "advantage" . From www.ibo.org/diploma/assessment/.../d_3_itgsx_gui-out_1001_1_e.pdf

I also checked and double checked whether I could take the course with both the ITGS teacher and guidance counselor, who all said that there was no prerequisite in February 2013.

Furthermore, the "prerequisite" in question is a tech/computer science course, which, from my understanding, does not seem in any way necessary to take ITGS. At the aforementioned link, ibo.org states that ITGS " considers the internal workings of an IT system only to the extent of how it contributes to the understanding of a social impact or ethical issue", whereas the "prerequisite" seems to primarily consider the IT perspective.

Has anyone else encountered or heard of any such ITGS "prerequisite"? And if so, how have you dealt with them?

If it is helpful, I attend an English IB school in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Also, the Ontario Ministry of Education also doesn't require a prerequisite for an equivalent non-IB course.

Thank you so much for all your help !!!!

[iubirea_dulce]

i know many of my friends that took the IGTS course as their elective and they needed no pre-requiste. I have also looked at the course syllabus and past exams and there appears nothing in there that wouldn't be just common sense or something you would really need more than a month at most to learn. It's just a lot of writting and being very specific and using the proper format and language IB wants you to. But there shouldn't be any pre-requiste... I'm pretty sure IB courses don't need pre-requistes if you're in grade 11 anyways