Migrating to Vietnam with kids! Points to watch out for regarding school enrollment

Xin chào! (This is a Vietnamese greeting.) On this blog, Japanese husband Yuki and Vietnamese wife Goc share their life living in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, along with travel information from all across the country. ※The following article is a travel article. This time, we're introducing "important points to watch out for regarding school enrollment in Vietnam." You might be thinking, "Why would you write about something like that?" but actually, this is something that families hoping to move to Vietnam with children, or those planning to have children in the future, absolutely must know! Let us explain. The biggest wall families with small children face when moving to Vietnam is "school.

<At a university graduation ceremony. In fact, many Vietnamese universities have adopted the British system> Among those considering moving to Vietnam, I imagine there are many families who already have children in school, or who are planning to have children soon. What I'd like to ask these people is: "Have you thought about your child's schooling?" When Japanese families who have relocated to Vietnam think about their children's education, there are generally two options to consider. 1. International schools 2. Government-accredited Japanese schools Are international schools really the difficult option after all?

There are many international schools in major cities such as Hanoi, Danang, and Ho Chi Minh City. However, as you might imagine, the tuition fees are quite high. Even starting from elementary school, tuition begins at around 500,000–800,000 yen per year, and it increases with each grade level, eventually costing roughly 1.3–1.8 million yen per year. On top of that, when you add summer camps, various events, and school bus transportation to and from school, the total cost becomes even higher.   Also, something that's often said is, "Unless at least one parent has native-level English ability, the child won't be able to keep up with schoolwork." And that makes total sense, doesn't it? All the classmates and teachers at school are foreigners. Even if the child is struggling at school, there's no one there to help them in Japanese. Going to a government-accredited Japanese school is the standard choice, but the biggest obstacle is "high school.

The white ao dai that everyone knows is actually a high school uniform. For Japanese families who have moved to Vietnam, the school they usually send their children to is a government-accredited Japanese school. Since the curriculum follows the Japanese educational program, children can complete their elementary and secondary education there. By the way, tuition runs about 80,000 to 100,000 yen per month, and on top of that come additional costs such as teaching materials, the school bus, and school lunches.   However, there's an issue here: "what path to take after graduating junior high school." As of 2025, there are no schools offering a high school curriculum (upper secondary division). Because of this, the paths available to children and their families after junior high school graduation are: 1. The child alone returns to Japan and enrolls in a boarding high school 2. Either the mother or father returns to Japan with the child and they live apart from the other parent 3. The whole family returns to Japan together These are the options.   If a child attends a Japanese school while also going to an English cram school, and can be brought up to a fairly high level by the third year of junior high school, it becomes possible to sit the entrance exam for the upper (senior) school of an international school (of course, the difficulty level is quite high). Among Japanese families who moved to Vietnam while young, there are those who came here without knowing the above circumstances, and after enrolling their child in a Japanese school, find themselves thinking, "Only ○ more years until third year of junior high...There are also people who worry every day, saying, "I need to decide on my path soon." This issue has been talked about continuously ever since I came to Vietnam back in the 2010s, and everyone keeps hoping, "I wish Vietnam would hurry up and get a high school department at the Japanese school," but even now, in 2025, it still doesn't seem to exist... Side note: what about yuki&goc's child? By the way, we have two daughters (7 years old and 0 years old), and our children attend local schools in Vietnam. At first, we were thinking of enrolling our older daughter in a Japanese school, hoping that a high school section would be established by the time she finished junior high school at age 14. But we came to feel that this was really a gamble, so in the end we enrolled her in a regular Vietnamese school.   At regular school it's Vietnamese only, but at home my husband Yuki speaks to her in Japanese, so through a mix of home study, a Japanese cram school once a week, and YouTube, she's somehow managing to pick up natural, native-like Japanese (lol). For now I can breathe a sigh of relief.