Hong Kong
Seventy-Three Hong Kong Students Score Perfect IB Marks in 2026
A record cohort sat the diploma this year, with the city's average well clear of the global mean. British-curriculum schools were prominent among those driving Hong Kong's strongest collective result in years.
Seventy-three students across 17 Hong Kong schools achieved the maximum 45 points in the May 2026 International Baccalaureate examinations, according to the South China Morning Post, as the city posted one of its most impressive collective results since the diploma gained wide uptake here.
The 2,912 candidates who sat the exams represented an 11 per cent increase on the previous year, and they returned a mean score of 37.02 out of 45, comfortably above the global average of 30.88. The city's pass rate held at 98 per cent, with roughly one in three candidates scoring 40 or higher.
ESF leads the count
The English Schools Foundation, whose network spans twelve campuses across Hong Kong, produced 27 of the city's 73 perfect scorers and saw more than 1,000 students awarded the diploma at a pass rate of 98.3 per cent. The foundation's institutional average of 36.4 reflects both the scale of its programme and the consistency it has built across a diverse student body. By any measure, ESF now runs one of the largest and most productive IB operations in Asia.
Victoria Shanghai Academy stood out at the school level, with nine students scoring 45 and an institutional mean of 39, which the school described as its best result on record. The Canadian International School of Hong Kong recorded three perfect scorers and noted it was the thirteenth consecutive year that one of its students had achieved the maximum mark. St Paul's Co-Educational College led all institutions on average score, at 42.6, with six students reaching 45.
A city consolidating its position
The combination of a growing cohort and a rising average points to something structural rather than a single strong year. Hong Kong has long been one of the world's most competitive IB cities, but the 2026 data suggests the gap between the city and the global mean is widening rather than narrowing. For schools due to open new campuses or sixth-form centres in September, the timing is useful: families are arriving in a market where the benchmark for IB performance is unusually high.