There’s no post here so I’ll share it.
For those of you with kids living in Kaohsiung, there is a new international school opening up in September 2026. If you have Facebook here’s a link.
I will be checking it out with the Mrs. It looks promising!
Looks fancy and expensive. I wonder how close it can be to the Finnish education system.
I wonder as well. I’ll be going to one of its presentations so I can give an update on it for prospective parents.
They might be needing teachers too so potential jobs therr
Looks like they are sharing the public elementary school. The pool photos might be from the sports centre next door to the elementary school.
I heard a Japanese school is also sharing a public elementary school in another area too.
Is the IB program in English?
The IB program is normally taught in either English, French or Spanish from what I’ve gathered.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some Finnish would be included in the curriculum. I’d be okay with that…although its quite the difficult language from what my Finnish colleagues tell me.
So I went to the school with the Missus.
The good:
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It looks legit. The delegate from Finland was there and there were teachers who presented themselves as well.
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It will combine the Finnish curriculum with the IB program that I like
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There will be smaller classes initially so more one on one time with the parents
Tbe Bad
- There is no proper school. It will be renting classes in two different schools.
- It isn’t established and yet charges 500,000 NTD per semester give or take. That’s quite a price for a new school
- the principal allegedly has started a school in Taichung that has closed and the parents hadn’t gotten their money back…I will ask about this during our “interview” and confirm.
All in all - I’m still open to it but my wife and I need to know what we are dealing with. Otherwise it will have to be another IB school.
Isn’t there an American school in Kaohsiung? Might be less of a socialist education.
Can’t help but wonder if a local school education would be better, they can keep up with English at home.
That is what I would seriously consider for my daughter.
For that kind of money, I would not consider a school that has to rent classes in other schools. I mean, what the heck?
Here’s the issue that I’ve come up with.
The local school education comes with the local school mindset: compliance and conformity.
My eldest kids, who have gone through the American system that encourages critical thinking and dialogue have had a hard time in the Taiwan school system.
I noticed it when I took them to a prospective international school. They lit up…like they were able to be themselves. It shocked me I must admit.
The only benefit I argue that comes with a local school (besides the lack of a hefty price tag and risk of becoming a snob) is that the kids learn mandarin. International schools seem to stay away from it, unfortunately.
I know right? For that kind of money I’d also expect to see some kind of track record or established reputation.
We’ll see…the wife is keen because it is closer to home than the alternatives we are considering.
I wonder how important the school system really is. Does it really pave the way for future success or failure or does it not matter that much after all? We enrolled our boy in private school, only to find out that his ADHD behavior made him kind of unwelcome there. Now he is in public school where there are other challenges for sure. The perfect education environment is of course desirable, but in the end when they grow up, going through a rough system, maybe they will turn out alright, or even well prepared for the world out there, regardless? 
In many cases the home life is the biggest determining factor. Also, bright kids that get into the top public senior high schools are probably miles ahead of those in international schools.
Even average students are probably ahead of international school contemporaries.
The biggest issue I see though is expat students not having the chance to experience a local school and develop their mandarin skills, might as well be anywhere in the world.
I can only speak from my experience after having gone through the French school system as a kid and later on I went to an American school.
I remember the French “sink or swim” style and the insistence of rote memorization rather than critical thinking or choosing your classes, for example.
So yes home life does matter but the values instilled by the school institution matter as well. For example in the French system as a teenager if you did well in science you were considered smart. If you did well in literature you were considered…well..not as smart and weren’t going to have as good a future.
I didn’t like the French system at all a
It depends by what you mean with “ahead.”
The advantages of being in an international school is getting to meet people from around the world.
I’ll play devil’s advocate and say that yes, you might not learn as much mandarin but you’ll be introduced to other languages and you’ll pick them up.
Oh and your English will be better and English has higher value in today’s world (until the Chinese take us all over of course.)
But yes maybe being exposed to both and some kids to better in some schools while other kids to better in others.
There are certainly benefits to some private schools, but with parental support and encouragement at home, it likely doesn’t matter much regarding future success. I say that as someone choosing private schooling.
Yea, unless it’s specifically a school that carers to certain needs, most private schools aren’t set up (nor want to) deal with students who are more of a challenge.
Except for connections, societal mimicry (if your classmates are cosmopolitan polyglots who think critically then chances are your kids will be as well) and how they are treated by their teachers (a level of respect and esteem seeing as they most probably come “good stock”.)
Yes home education is nice but we cannot downplay the benefits of private schools…there’s a reason why people with means send their kids there
As.i said, there’s reasons to send kids to private schools - academic success isn’t really one of them. A lot of research shows that there’s hardly any measurable difference in schools once you control for socioeconomic background. This has been shown repeatedly since the Coleman report.
The school we’ve currently selected readily acknowledge let his (despite great test scores), which I appreciate. They’re sold us on their benefits, not the benefits of us bringing our background into the fold.and claiming it as a reason for the students success. 
Did you decide yes or no on the school? We decided no in the end. They seemed too eager for new students (our child was immediately accepted with no assessments and then they kept badgering through email asking about whether we had registered yet), they aren’t yet established, and the school didn’t seem to strictly follow a Finnish model but seemed like a hybrid of that and more traditional East Asian instruction. Plus, the cost is up there with KAS a much more established school with a, good or bad, track record. (It was also a bit far from us but that’s obviously more of an ‘us’ reason.)