Profile

VIS is the only school in Lao PDR, accredited by both the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and the Council of International Schools (CIS). We are also the only IB World School in the country, delivering IB Curriculum across all divisions.

Using English as the primary language of instruction, the school is an International Baccalaureate continuum school following the Primary, Middle Years, and Diploma Program curriculum frameworks.

The academic year is 180 days, broken into two semesters. Semester 1 is from early August until mid January. Semester 2 is from late January to early June. Lao National holidays are observed in addition to traditional international school breaks.

Vientiane International School is a welcoming environment established for the education of the children of Lao and expatriate families who support the school’s mission, vision, and values. The school will seek to maintain a diverse student body, thus seeking to enroll students with diverse backgrounds and abilities who can benefit from and contribute to our high-quality program.

Our Home Personal Language program supports the development and maintenance of mother tongue languages for students in 7 different languages (Lao, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Russian). VIS also provides support for students who are in the process of acquiring English through the English Language Acquisition (ELA) program. Within the ELA program, we serve students in phases 1, 2, 3, and 4; once students have acquired phase 5 English proficiency, they join English courses at a native language level.

The student body of 426 students is diverse, drawing from 39 nationalities. Most families represent the non-government and diplomatic sectors with international and local businesses also well represented. Our community is highly transient and the average length of stay for families in Vientiane is 3 years.