Dushanbe International School (DIS)

Part of the University of Cambridge. It allows a school to teach the Cambridge programmes and to enter pupils for the exams. There are four stages and they are authorised separately: primary, lower secondary, IGCSE and A Level. If the stages are known they are named in the line below; if that line is missing, the school does not publish them, and the Cambridge registry does not show stages either - it gives only the name of the centre, the country and whether private candidates are accepted. Cambridge calls what it does registration rather than accreditation, and the network holds about ten thousand schools.

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. At this school: IGCSE (ages 14-16), A-Level (ages 16-18). IGCSE means exams at around Year 10 or 11, the British counterpart of a lower secondary leaving certificate. A-Level is the senior years, and their results are what British and many other universities admit on.

It accredits international schools and is a paying association at the same time. It examines governance and ownership, the curriculum, teaching, student wellbeing, staff and premises; a team of volunteers from other CIS accredited schools visits the school. Membership and accreditation are different things here, and schools confuse them more often than anything else.

What the badge means for this school. The school appears in the organisation's directory, but the organisation has granted it no status at all. At the Council of International Schools such an entry is called a Prospect and means a potential client in their system: the school may have made an enquiry, may have been added from outside, or may not know about the entry at all - on the websites of three such schools out of five the organisation is not mentioned once. An entry like this brings a school into the ranking but scores the minimum on that criterion, exactly as membership and candidacy do. It is neither an accreditation nor candidacy, and it says nothing about the quality of the school. The entry stands in the organisation's open directory, and no status stands behind it there.