International German School Ho Chi Minh City (IGS)

The only German school in Vietnam recognised by the Federal Foreign Office and supported by the ZfA, founded in 2012 in An Phu, District 2 and run as a non-profit.

IGS offers a continuous pathway from kindergarten to Grade 12 leading to either the German Abitur or the IB Diploma, with German as the main language of instruction and English and Vietnamese taught alongside. The school sits at 12 Vo Truong Toan in An Phu and has passed the German Bund-Länder inspection, the standard quality benchmark for German schools abroad. Carrier organisation is the Stiftung Bildung und Handwerk.

The cohort is small and class sizes follow. Families describe a tight community where children are well looked after, leadership is engaged, and the school can absorb children with additional needs in a way the larger names sometimes do not. Fees run roughly VND 272 million in kindergarten to VND 442 million in secondary, lower than the premium English-medium tier. Mostly relevant for German-speaking families and for families specifically wanting an Abitur pathway.

• IGS is a non-profit German School Abroad backed by the German Federal Foreign Office and ZfA, and an authorised IB World School running the German International Abitur (GIB) at upper secondary.
• The school passed its 2024 IB DP five-year evaluation and a separate Bund-Länder Inspection with strong results, with inspectors flagging instruction quality and teacher dedication.
• Parent voice consistently cites small class sizes, a green An Phú villa campus and individual support. One parent of two children across five years described "a safe and caring environment" with children "linguistically way above the average in their respective classes".
• Reach is small. The DP is delivered bilingually in German and English, which suits returning German-track families more than fully English-medium ones.
• Reddit and expat.com discussion of IGS specifically is thin; most signal sits on the school's own channels and ISchoolAdvisor.