School Heads Across Asia Meet in Hanoi to Wrestle With AI and Governance

The Governance as Leadership Training Institute returned to United Nations International School of Hanoi from September 10 to 12, drawing school leaders and board chairs from Beijing, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Singapore, and Taipei for its tenth anniversary edition. According to the Vietnam Investment Review, Vietnamese education officials joined the three-day gathering alongside international school leaders from across the region.

The theme, "Future-ready governance: governing with purpose and responsibility in an AI-shaped world," framed every session. Keynote workshops examined how governing boards should respond when technology companies accelerate faster than policy can keep pace, when teachers experiment with AI tools without clear institutional guidelines, and when parents expect answers that school leaders cannot yet give.

What boards are being asked to decide

Rami Madani, head of school at the International School of Kuala Lumpur and facilitator of this year's institute, said that "bringing boards and heads from across Asia together at UNIS Hanoi allows us to examine difficult questions openly." Sessions used scenario-based learning to test board responses to AI procurement decisions, student data ethics, crisis leadership, and the governance implications of adaptive learning platforms that log pupil behaviour at scale.

Dr Liz Gale, UNIS Hanoi head of school, framed the challenge directly: "Governance in an AI-shaped world is not a challenge that any one school can address alone." Student representatives led campus tours and spoke about how artificial intelligence is already shaping their daily learning, a deliberate inclusion intended to test board assumptions against the lived experience of the students whose futures were under discussion.

Hanoi's growing regional role

Since 2020, GALTI has supported Vietnamese education development through the UNIS Hanoi Learning Together Fund, which finances an annual conference connecting hundreds of local and international educators. Ngo Thi Diep Lan, from Vietnam's Private and Foreign-Invested Education Department, participated in this year's programme, a signal that domestic policy circles are following closely how international schools frame the AI governance question.

For school operators and boards across Asia, the gathering arrives at a moment when AI decisions are shifting from management into governance. Questions about data sovereignty, AI-assisted selection, and algorithmic tools in assessment belong in a different conversation from routine school operations, one that governing boards are now being asked to lead. Whether the frameworks shaped in Hanoi this week translate into formal policy at individual institutions will depend on what participants choose to do when they return home.