A California School Founded in 1953 Opens Its First Southeast Asia Campus in Hanoi

Fairmont International School Vietnam opened its Hanoi campus on 17 August, bringing a US Common Core and Advanced Placement programme to one of Southeast Asia's faster-growing international school markets. According to a statement carried by PR Newswire, Superintendent Allen Stanley McInnis said the school's ambition was 'not just to open a school, but to build a vibrant, multicultural community' in the city.

The school and its network

The campus on Hoang Minh Giam Street in Yen Hoa Ward is the sixth Fairmont location globally and the first the California-founded group, established in 1953, has opened in Southeast Asia. It is an affiliate of International Schools Partnership, the UK-headquartered operator that connects more than 110 schools across 25 countries. The school spans Early Years through High School, with AP courses planned for senior students, and also offers a track aligned with Vietnam's Ministry of Education requirements, a practical arrangement for schools seeking to enrol local-passport holders alongside international families.

Northern Vietnam's growing market

Hanoi is proving an increasingly active destination for international school operators. Rugby School announced a new Vietnam campus earlier this year, and Uppingham School is partnering with a local group on a campus in Hung Yen province, just outside the capital. Together the arrivals suggest that northern Vietnam, historically the quieter of the country's two main international school markets, is beginning to attract the same calibre of operator that Ho Chi Minh City has drawn for the past decade.

Demand in Hanoi comes from two distinct pools. Expatriate families in the city's diplomatic and corporate clusters have historically been the anchor tenant for foreign-curriculum schools; but the faster-growing segment is now affluent Vietnamese families pursuing overseas university pathways for their children, a group that tends to favour American curriculum options for the AP record and standardised-test profile that US admissions processes reward.