Hong Kong · History
Seventy-Three Students, One Rented House, and a School That Lasted
German Swiss International School has run bilingual education on Hong Kong Island since 1969, growing from a rented Peak bungalow into a dual-campus institution serving 1,250 students from more than 30 countries.
In 1969, a group of German and Swiss expatriate parents in colonial Hong Kong decided to pool resources rather than wait for someone else to build the school they wanted. Two earlier attempts, in 1967 and 1968, had come to nothing. The third try held.
Origins
The school opened at 1 Barker Road on The Peak, a house the founders rented because they owned nothing yet. Enrolment on day one was 73 students. The founding group was led by Ingrid Buchholtz, and the capital came from corporate donors on both sides of the Rhine: 25 West German companies contributed HK$117,000, while 18 Swiss companies added HK$78,000. A bilingual German-English curriculum was the plan from the start, not an afterthought added later.
The kindergarten, caught on a waiting list for space, was housed separately at Union Church on Kennedy Road. Growth forced further moves in the early 1970s, with primary classes shifting first to May Road, then to the former British Military Hospital on Borrett Road in 1973. That same year, J. Tiemann took over as headmaster and the West German government formally recognised the school, sending Hans Kraus to serve as principal as enrolment continued to climb.
The Move to Guildford Road
In 1972, the Hong Kong Government granted the school land on Guildford Road, The Peak, free of charge. Construction of the upper building began in 1973, at a total cost of HK$7 million. The new Peak Campus opened in 1975, by which point the school had 525 students. The building solved the accommodation problem that had sent classes scrambling across the island for six years.
The Peak Campus eventually grew to three linked buildings, known as the Upper, Middle, and Lower Buildings. Upper Primary and Secondary continue to be taught there today, at 11 Guildford Road.
A Second Campus
By the mid-2000s, rising demand from expatriate families pushed capacity again. In 2007, the Hong Kong Government allocated a second site to the school at 162 Pok Fu Lam Road. A Campus Development Plan, approved by the board in 2008, set out a phased programme of construction and refurbishment across both sites. The Pok Fu Lam Campus opened around 2010 and became the permanent home for Kindergarten and Lower Primary. In 2012, while further construction work was carried out at The Peak, Upper Primary classes decanted temporarily to a site in Wan Chai on Oi Kwan Road.
The Pok Fu Lam Campus also houses the school's Business College, the Wirtschaftskolleg, which offers vocational training in wholesale and foreign trade and in transport and logistics management, an unusual offering for an international school at secondary level.
Curriculum and Identity
GSIS operates two parallel streams under one roof. The German International Stream leads to the Deutsches Internationales Abitur, a qualification recognised across the German-speaking world and beyond. The English International Stream follows the English National Curriculum through primary, sits IGCSE at the end of Year 11, and completes the IB Diploma in Years 12 and 13. Both streams run from Kindergarten through to the end of secondary.
The German stream connects students to a global network of more than 135 German Schools Abroad. As reported in the South China Morning Post Good Schools Guide, both diplomas are globally recognised, and graduates proceed to universities including Ivy League institutions in the United States, Russell Group universities in the United Kingdom, and leading German and Hong Kong institutions.
GSIS is the only school in Hong Kong delivering a full German curriculum. Germany's Central Agency for Schools Abroad has certified it as an Excellent German School Abroad, a quality seal most recently reconfirmed in 2023. The Swiss Federal Government also provides official recognition and partial funding to the school. Further accreditation comes from the Council of International Schools (CIS) and the International Baccalaureate Organisation. The school is additionally a member of the World Association of German Schools Abroad and holds the German Federal Foreign Office's PASCH designation, which supports German-language education internationally.
Present Day
GSIS currently enrols around 1,250 students drawn from more than 30 countries, served by approximately 240 teaching staff across its two campuses on Hong Kong Island. The principal is Alexandra Freigang-Krause, a German educator with close to three decades of experience in international education. The school runs as a through-train institution: a place secured in Pok Fu Lam at Kindergarten carries through to The Peak at Secondary without a fresh application.