Which international school for local 8 year old boy

Dear all,
I could really use some help. I live in the Netherlands and have been supporting a Vietnamese girl/woman for the past 20 years. She now has an 8 year old son who with my help has learned to speak a decent amount of English. His parents and I would like him to attend an international/english school. The goal is to give him an internationally accepted high school diploma that would enable him to study at a dutch university/college.
I would very much appreciate any input on the type of schools in the area where he lives (Hoi An) and what you would recommend.
Your help is much appreciated
Kind regards
Brigitte
-@supportingTom

Welcome to the Vietnam Forum, Brigitte.

Hopefully someone with first-hand knowledge here in Hội An will be able to give you useful guidance.

I read a post on Face.book the other day where foreigners moving from HCMC to Hội An were being quoted $10,000 USD per year for their child to attend a local international school (I can't verify that figure).

Unfortunately, none of the local international schools has a listing in the business directory on this site.

You might try getting more information on FB: search for the "Hoi An Expats and Locals Community" group.

I've seen firsthand how help such as yours can come to beautiful fruition.

I met a young woman in Đà Nẵng when I returned here in 2018.

She had been receiving mostly remote assistance from a European couple since she was a baby.

When I met her she was a first-year student at the Đà Nẵng School of Economics.

She has graduated now and has a successful life in Vietnam, even though she hasn't learned English very well.

Good luck with your plans, especially with a young boy.

It's been my experience that they are usually much harder to motivate than Vietnamese girls.

Good luck with your plans, especially with a young boy.

It's been my experience that they are usually much harder to motivate than Vietnamese girls.
-@OceanBeach92107

I have very recently developed my own hypothesis as to why ethnic Chinese immigrants excel academically in the West.  Most common popular ideas  relate to parental pressure.   My thinking is that this is a cultural holdover from the Chinese Imperial examinations to enter the civil service.   The fairness of the exams may have differed in different eras, but for many test takers, this was the only way to move their families solidly into the middle class.  I know that a lot of the Vietnamese monarchical system was modeled on China's.   Did Vietnam have competitive examinations, or not?  Any ideas about why the two similar systems may have had such dissimilar cultural results.

@OceanBeach92107

Thank you for your input.

I have looked at Green Shoots school in Hoi An which seems very nice but I cannot judge the quality of the education from here. It is important that his Vietnamese will also stay at a good level in case he would want to enter a Vietnamese college/University.

I also looked at Singapore International School which I am quit sure is academically rigorous. Having lived in Singapore and seen the pressure that is put on local kids to perform that worries me a bit. ( monthly cases of kids jumping to their deaths from highrise buildings because they couldnt handle the pressure anymore)

I am not able to pay for the international school myself but am in the process of setting up a foundation and finding sponsors to pay for this. 

Also I have looked up the FB page for Hoi An expats and posted a message there as well.

As for boys eagerness to learn versus girls.: this kid is very self-motivated and eager to learn! (wish I could say that from my own kids who are mostly girls )

There are a few international schools in the area. Green Shoots is OK... follows the commonwealth/ uk culture and curriculum and is small but has good teachers. Hoi An International School is a little bigger and more focused on the local population and has not been around quite as long. Singapore International School is a franchise owned by -you guessed it- stingy Singaporeans. It also follows Cambridge/ UK curriculum. Singapore IS is very expensive and there is a high turnover rate for teachers. APU International school follows the US curriculum and is somewhat cheaper ... also a high teacher turnover and a bit disorganized but depending on your needs could be an option...

Those are pretty much all the international schools w/in reasonable distance of Hoi An. I'd probably choose Greenshoots or Hoi An international School (may actually end up having to make that choice since we have a house and my wife's family there) but I'm not too keen on the uptight and antiquated aspects of the British school system used by those schools. Still... a lot better than nothing or public school for sure .

Vietnam has not really had international schools for very long... the market and school culture is still "developing" to put it nicely. As others have mentioned they charge ALOT of money-- the equivalent of my car each semester. However for all that money the parents of local kids aren't seeing a huge difference between them and local public schools; still using the same teaching methods for many, teachers that get burned out quickly and quit on a very regular basis. It will take the private Ed culture of Vietnam an interminable amount of time to catch up to Singapore or Korea or Japan or even China ... honestly I don't believe it ever will totally catch up and evolve that way.

if you just have the goal of having the child - who is local and wants to retain Vietnamese language- learn enough to get good scores and go to university in Europe, I'd probably go with a more bilingual focused school like Hoi An International School or APU. I believe these schools / programs are a lot cheaper too.

So as an experienced and certified teacher here who has lived in that area, that's my 2 cents 😉

@ntbusch1 Hi,Thank you very much for your 2 cents

Based on everything I have heard and read by now I think he is better of staying in his local school and adding extra english language lessons.  He will go for an intake at ILA tomorrow (hope that is a good place)  It turns out that for university entrance overseas a local highschool diploma and a high score on Toefl or IELTS is enough. My fear with the international schools is that he will loose out on his Vietnamese language skills. If he wouldnt make it to university level than it will also be very difficult for him to go back to a Vietnames vocational type of school.  also would very much like for him to get more exposure to native english speaking kids his age. Maybe by joining a sportsclub or something. Any suggestions?

Many thanks for your help

Brigitte