Hong Kong · History
From 73 pupils on The Peak to 1,300: GSIS at 56
Founded in 1969 by German and Swiss parent groups who had twice failed to go it alone, German Swiss International School is now Hong Kong's only provider of the German curriculum and one of its highest-performing IB schools.
Origins
The Swiss community in Hong Kong had worked out as early as 1964 that it could not sustain a German-medium school on its own. The German community reached the same conclusion. Two attempts to combine forces, in 1967 and 1968, came to nothing. The 1967 disturbances across Hong Kong disrupted the first try; a second attempt in 1968 also collapsed. It was not until 1969 that the project finally held together, led by Ingrid Buchholtz, with 25 West German companies contributing HK$117,000 and 18 Swiss firms adding HK$78,000 to get the school off the ground.
German Swiss International School opened that year in a rented house at 1 Barker Road, The Peak, with 73 students. The bilingual German-English ambition was written in from day one: the founders wanted a school that would prepare children for repatriation to Europe while remaining internationally grounded. The kindergarten spilled over into Union Church on Kennedy Road almost immediately, demand already exceeding the Barker Road premises.
Growth and campus moves
Growth was swift. By 1972 enrolment pressure had forced primary classes onto May Road; the following year all non-kindergarten classes shifted into a former hospital on Borrett Road. Also in 1972, the Hong Kong Government granted the school a plot on Guildford Road, free of charge, and the West German government dispatched Hans Kraus as principal. Construction of what is now the Upper Building began in 1973, the same year J. Tiemann took over as headmaster. The new Peak Campus opened in 1975 at a cost of HK$7 million, with total enrolment by then standing at 525. The West German government formally recognised the school around that time.
The campus settled at Guildford Road but the school kept growing. In 1975, with a perception that students were mastering neither English nor German adequately in a fully mixed environment, GSIS formalised the two-stream model, separating students into distinct German and English educational pathways from kindergarten upwards. That structural decision has defined the school ever since.
A second wave of campus change came in the 2000s. In 2006 the kindergarten moved temporarily to Tin Hau while the Business College relocated to Sai Ying Pun. The following year the Hong Kong Government awarded the school a permanent second site at 162 Pok Fu Lam Road; it opened in 2010 as the home for the Kindergarten and Lower Primary. Also in 2007, the school swapped its post-16 qualifications: A-levels gave way to the IB Diploma in the English Stream, and the German Abitur system transitioned to the Deutsches Internationales Abitur (DIA). In 2008 the board launched a five-year Campus Development Plan. Upper Primary classes were decanted to a temporary site in Wan Chai from 2012, returning to the Peak Campus on completion of construction works in 2016.
One chapter closed less smoothly. In March 2020, the Hong Kong Education Bureau ordered the closure of the school's Business College after determining it had operated without proper post-secondary registration since 2017, affecting around 100 students who were required to transfer elsewhere.
Curriculum and identity
GSIS runs as one school with two fully parallel streams from kindergarten through to Year 13. The English International Stream follows the National Curriculum for England, moves through IGCSE examinations in Years 10 and 11, and culminates in the IB Diploma Programme. The German International Stream delivers instruction primarily in German, leads to the Deutsches Internationales Abitur, and connects students to a network of more than 135 German Schools Abroad worldwide. The German stream is open to all nationalities, with no prior knowledge of German required at certain entry points.
The school holds Council of International Schools (CIS) membership and, as documented by multiple education registries, is the only school in Hong Kong providing the full German curriculum. In November 2023 it received the "Excellent German School Abroad" quality seal from Germany's Central Agency for Schools Abroad, a recognition of its bilingual standards and curriculum delivery. The governments of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland have provided financial subsidies, and English remains the school's sole language of governance and the medium of communication between the two streams.
Present day
GSIS now enrols approximately 1,300 students from more than 27 countries, across two campuses on Hong Kong Island: the main Peak Campus at 11 Guildford Road, which houses Upper Primary and Secondary for both streams, and the Pok Fu Lam Campus at 162 Pok Fu Lam Road, which serves Kindergarten and Lower Primary. The Peak Campus has been substantially refurbished and includes a 25-metre indoor swimming pool, modern science laboratories, a black box theatre, music and art rooms, and a rooftop sports pitch.
Alexandra Freigang-Krause became principal in February 2024, succeeding prior leadership after a career that included a senior role at Bavaria's central institute of teacher training, where she oversaw professional development across social studies, ethics, the arts, and languages. She has a stated interest in bilingualism and interculturality and personal ties to Switzerland through her father.
IB results have been among the strongest in Hong Kong. In 2025, as reported by the South China Morning Post, all 68 IB candidates passed, seven achieved the maximum score of 45 points, and 51 students scored 40 or above. Six bilingual diplomas were awarded, two in English-German and four in English-Mandarin Chinese.