In Saigon, the three labels describe three different deals. An international preschool usually teaches a foreign programme mostly in English, often with a large share of foreign families. A bilingual preschool usually runs the Vietnamese national preschool programme and adds English through foreign or bilingual co-teachers, so children spend the day in both languages. A Vietnamese preschool, public or private, teaches in Vietnamese, follows the national programme and is where most local children in the city go.
None of the three is better in the abstract. The right choice depends on four things you can actually check: which language you want your child to live in for ten hours a day, where your family is likely to be in three years, what the school is licensed to do, and how many of your child’s classmates will share their first language. This guide walks through each difference, then shows how to test the label against what you see on a visit.
The short comparison
Before going deeper, here is the pattern most families find when they visit schools across the city. Treat it as a starting map, not a rule: plenty of schools sit between two columns, and the only reliable source is what a given school shows you on paper and in the classroom.
| Question | International | Bilingual | Vietnamese |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main programme | A foreign framework (for example IB, Cambridge, England’s EYFS, Montessori) | Vietnamese national preschool programme plus an English strand | Vietnamese national preschool programme |
| Language of the day | Mostly English, Vietnamese often taught as a subject | Vietnamese and English through the day, the balance varies widely | Vietnamese, sometimes a weekly English class |
| Teachers | Often a foreign lead teacher with a Vietnamese assistant | Vietnamese homeroom teacher with a foreign or bilingual co-teacher | Vietnamese teachers with preschool qualifications |
| Classmates | Many expat and mixed families, plus Vietnamese families | Mostly Vietnamese families, some expat children | Almost all Vietnamese families |
| Usual licence | Often foreign-invested or a school for foreign children | Private Vietnamese school, sometimes with a licensed foreign partner | Public or private Vietnamese school |
| What it prepares for | International primary schools and moving abroad | Bilingual or international primary in Vietnam, sometimes abroad | Vietnamese primary schools |
Notice that fees are not in the table. Each group spans a wide range, and the same label can hide very different price structures, so compare published fees school by school and confirm them with each admissions office rather than assuming a type is cheap or expensive.
Curriculum: what the day is built around
Every licensed preschool in Vietnam is expected to cover the national preschool education programme issued by the Ministry of Education and Training, which sets goals across physical, cognitive, language, social-emotional and aesthetic development for children from three months to six years. Vietnamese and most bilingual schools build their weekly plan directly on that programme. International schools usually build on a foreign framework instead, and how far they also cover the Vietnamese programme depends on their licence and on whether they enrol Vietnamese children.
For a parent, the practical difference shows up in the rhythm of the week. A school built on the national programme tends to organise learning into themes that run for a week or two, such as family, the body, animals or Tet, with activities planned around each theme. Foreign frameworks differ among themselves: some use inquiry projects that follow children’s questions, some use prepared materials children choose from, some set out early learning goals that teachers observe and record. Ask any school, whatever its label, to show you a real weekly plan for your child’s age group. A plan you can read tells you more than the name of the framework.
Language: whose language fills the room
The biggest daily difference is not the curriculum but the language your child hears from arrival to pick-up. In an international school that is mainly English, so a child who arrives with no English will be immersed in it, and a child who speaks Vietnamese at home may hear little of it during the day. In a Vietnamese school it is Vietnamese, which suits families planning to stay long term and wanting their child to belong locally, and which can be a steep start for a child who speaks neither language yet.
Bilingual schools sit in between, and this is where labels mislead most. One school may mean a foreign teacher who visits for forty minutes a day; another may mean a foreign or fluent co-teacher in the room most of the day. Both can honestly be called bilingual. The useful question is how many hours a week your child’s class spends with an adult speaking English, and how many with an adult speaking Vietnamese. Research on young bilinguals, including work by Erika Hoff and colleagues, has found that children’s vocabulary in each language tracks how much they hear it, so the hours matter more than the word on the gate.
Teachers and qualifications
Vietnam’s Law on Education 2019 sets college-level training in preschool education as the standard qualification for preschool teachers. In Vietnamese and most bilingual schools, the homeroom teacher who carries responsibility for the group is expected to meet that standard. Foreign teachers are a different story: their training varies from a degree in early childhood education to a general teaching certificate for adults. Neither nationality nor accent tells you whether someone knows how to work with two-year-olds.
International schools often place a foreign lead teacher with early years training at the centre of the class, supported by a Vietnamese assistant. Bilingual schools often reverse that, with a Vietnamese homeroom teacher and a foreign co-teacher. Either can work well. What you want to know is who plans the learning, who handles a crying child or a toileting accident, and who talks to you at pick-up. Ask how long the current teachers have been at the school, too. Staff stability is one of the clearest signals of quality in early childhood settings, because toddlers learn through relationships that take months to build.
Licensing and what the label is allowed to mean
The word international is a marketing description, not a licence category you can look up. What you can look up is the legal form of the school. Public preschools are run by the state. Private Vietnamese preschools are licensed by local education authorities and teach the national programme, often with extra English. Foreign-invested schools, and schools set up for the children of foreigners, operate under Decree 86/2018/ND-CP on foreign cooperation and investment in education, which governs what foreign programmes they may teach and whom they may enrol.
This matters for two reasons. First, it tells you whether a foreign programme is part of the school’s licensed activity or an add-on taught alongside. Second, it can affect what records and certificates your child leaves with, which matters if you move or enrol in a primary school with its own entry rules. Ask the school which authority issued its operating decision and whether any foreign programme it names is licensed or run through a partner. A good school answers that calmly and can show you the paper.
There is also a smaller category worth knowing about: independent childcare groups and kindergarten classes, often run from a house in a residential lane. They are licensed at the local level with simpler requirements, can be warm and convenient, and rarely describe themselves as international. If you consider one, the same questions about the licence, the carer’s training and the number of children apply, and the answers matter even more because there is no larger organisation behind the room.
Classmates and the social side
Parents often underestimate how much the other children shape the experience. In a class where most children share one home language, that language becomes the language of play, whatever the teachers speak. A child placed in an English-medium class where everyone else chats in Vietnamese at the sand tray will pick up Vietnamese from friends, which many families welcome. The reverse is also true: an expat child in a mostly Vietnamese class gets a fast, informal route into Vietnamese, along with the social bumps of being the one who cannot follow the jokes at first.
Think about the friendships you want to make possible. Mixed classes give children an early sense that families live in different languages and eat different breakfasts. Classes dominated by one expat group can feel comfortable, but they can also keep a family inside a bubble for years. Ask the school, without needing names, roughly what share of each class comes from families who speak Vietnamese, English or another language at home. The answer helps you predict what your child will be speaking at the sand tray by the end of the first term.
Matching the type to your family’s plans
Start from the horizon. If you expect to leave Vietnam within one or two years and your child will join an English-medium primary school elsewhere, an English-dominant setting keeps the transition simple, and a bilingual school with strong English hours can also work. If you are staying long term, plan to use Vietnamese primary schools, or one parent is Vietnamese, a bilingual or Vietnamese school builds the language your child will need to belong. Families who are unsure often choose bilingual precisely because it keeps both doors open, provided the English hours are real.
Then weigh the practical frame around the type. A school forty minutes away in rush-hour traffic will shape your days more than its curriculum label, and long days in a car seat are hard on toddlers. Opening hours, meals, nap arrangements and holiday calendars differ too, and they matter more when both parents work. Make a short list that includes at least one school of each type you are seriously considering, visit them in the same fortnight, and compare what you saw with the same set of questions. The contrast usually settles the decision faster than reading about any one of them.
Testing the label on a visit
Once you know the three types, a single visit can tell you which one a school really is, whatever its name says. Stand in a classroom for ten minutes during activity time and listen. Which language do the adults use when they give instructions, comfort a child or settle a squabble? Which language do the children use with each other? Instructions and comfort are the moments when adults fall back on the language they find most natural, so they reveal the real language of the room better than a planned song.
Then look at the walls and shelves. Children’s own work, displayed at their eye level, tells you how the programme is lived. Ask to see a child’s portfolio or a recent progress report for the age group, with names covered. A national-programme school will usually describe progress against developmental goals for the age; a school using a foreign framework will use that framework’s language. A bilingual school should be able to show you how both languages appear in what it records about a child. If what you see and hear matches what the school told you at reception, the label is honest. If it does not, trust the classroom over the brochure, and ask one more question before leaving: what would my child’s Tuesday look like, hour by hour?
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Can an expat child attend a Vietnamese public preschool in Ho Chi Minh City?
Sometimes, but it is not automatic. Public places are allocated with priority for local residents, and foreign children’s eligibility and paperwork are handled by the local authority and the school. If you are interested, ask the ward office and the school directly which documents they need and whether places remain for the coming year.
Is a bilingual preschool just a Vietnamese school with an English class?
Some are, and some are much closer to full immersion in both languages. The label covers both. Ask how many hours a week each class spends with an adult speaking English, whether that adult is in the room for routines like meals and transitions, and who plans the English activities. Those answers separate the two kinds.
Will my child lose their home language at an international preschool?
A home language that is not used at school needs steady use at home to keep growing, whichever school you choose. Children often start answering in the school language after a few months. Regular reading, conversation and contact with relatives in the home language help. This is a question about the family routine as much as the school.
Do international preschools in Vietnam follow the Vietnamese curriculum?
It depends on the licence and the children enrolled. Some schools teach only a foreign framework, others combine it with parts of the national preschool programme, especially when they enrol Vietnamese children. Ask the school what its licence allows and how the two programmes appear in a normal week for your child’s age group.
Which type of preschool is best for a child who speaks neither English nor Vietnamese?
There is no single answer. Many such children do well in a setting where at least one adult can comfort them in a language they understand during the first weeks, and where routines are very predictable. Ask each school how it has supported children in that situation before and what it would do during your child’s first month.
Should the decision depend on where we will live in three years?
It is one of the strongest factors. Families leaving within a couple of years often choose English-dominant settings to ease the next move, while families staying long term often choose bilingual or Vietnamese schools so their child can belong locally. When the future is uncertain, a bilingual school with genuine English hours keeps both routes open.