[1] The diploma is awarded for the successful achievement of coursework and concomitant examinations which require that students take a minimum of 10 courses as well as be fully proficient in two languages.
It is officially recognised as an entry qualification for Higher Education in all the member states of the European Union (EU), as well as in a number of others.
Article 5 (2) of the Statute provides that holders of the Baccalaureate shall: The EB is a two-year course and assesses the performance of students in the subjects taught in secondary years 6–7.
Students may also choose complementary courses of two lessons per week such as practical science, introductory economics, art, music and theatre.
The final pass-rate is very high (almost always over 98%), in part due to the practice of 'weeding out' candidates who are not academically strong enough to complete the Baccalaureate.
However, the pluridisciplinarity the EB offers is advantageous to students wishing to go on to university studies, in France and Germany especially.
Recent experience (2011–2012 and beyond) has shown that students applying to British universities are encountering growing difficulties, sometimes serious, in having their Baccalaureate qualifications adequately recognised.
This reflects the demanding nature of the examination process and the fact that students need to perform very well across a very broad range of subjects and be fully bilingual.
The bilingual demands of the course work and concomitant examinations entail that monolingual students cannot pass.
This insistence on bilingual course work and examination makes it difficult for non-bilingual new entrants to succeed.
In a 2006 study based on a sample of over 500 former European School pupils, Kelly and Kelly compared the performances at British and Irish universities of students who had participated in the EB with the performances of students who had undertaken the dominant UK equivalent qualification, A-levels.