Western Australian International School System
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam · PrivateKey facts
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · DP · authorised programmeCIS · membershipCognia · accreditationCollege Board · authorised programmeRT Holdings · school is part of the networkWhat stands behind each entry
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
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: DP (ages 16-19). DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →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 belongs to this organisation but has not been through its accreditation. The difference matters: membership is usually paid for and has no external inspection behind it. The entry is confirmed in the organisation's open directory.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →The widest-reaching American accreditation: some forty thousand schools in over a hundred countries. It accredits both individual schools and whole school systems. It also sells a paid membership with no inspection behind it, and that membership is often passed off as accreditation.
What the badge means for this school. The school has been through this organisation's accreditation. It was judged as a whole: governance, safeguarding, staff, premises, teaching. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →An American organisation that allows a school to put the letters AP on a pupil's transcript. The permission is granted course by course and tied to a particular teacher, it has to be renewed every year, and College Board reads the course syllabus before granting it.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run advanced AP courses - not the school as a whole, but one by one: by subject and by teacher. Governance, safeguarding and the primary years are not part of that check. Which subjects are actually approved is visible in the ledger. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →Advanced Placement: American advanced courses for the senior years. The exam for a course is set and marked by the College Board, not by the school. A good result is counted by American universities as a first-year course already passed, which saves a student time and money.
What this means for this school. A school does not get to call a course AP automatically: the College Board reads the course syllabus and approves it separately for every subject and every teacher, and the permission has to be renewed each year. Every approved school in the world is listed in the open AP Course Ledger, and this school's entry there stands as a line in the accreditation block above. How many courses a school is approved for, and in which subjects, the ledger does not show in its general listing. AP has no leaving certificate of its own: it sits on top of the school's main programme rather than being a separate system.
RT Holdings is a Vietnamese education group in Ho Chi Minh City which describes itself as an ecosystem of educational institutions, language centres, vocational institutes and online programmes and calls the organisations within it member units. The site nowhere separates ownership, management and franchise and does not explain the legal form of its connection with the schools. The former name is confirmed by its own page carrying the address of the board of directors: in 2023 the system was officially transformed from Indochina Education & Development Group into RT Holdings. The origin of the organisation is traced to the Institute of Accounting and Business Management, and the length of its work is given as more than 23 years, with no specific year of foundation named. The counters on the home page give more than 20 units, more than 8 educational sites in Ho Chi Minh City, more than 900 teachers and employees, more than 500,000 students and graduates and a presence in four countries: Vietnam, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The site gives no separate figure for schools as such. Among the members named are the Western Australian School System, PennSchool, the Sydney schools, Penn Academy, Talents Development Academy and others. The owner of the holding company is not named on the site.
What this means for this school. The network owns or operates the school. Its accreditation and programme authorisation the school obtains separately, in its own name.