An interesting way to learn a lot about a school is to ask what the nationality percentages are. Most for profit schools in HCMC will be predominantly Vietnamese or Korean in their student body. That's not a bad thing at all as those kids are generally motivated students. But, it does show that other international families are not putting their children in those schools.

As for where to live, it will really depend on where the school is and how far you're willing to travel. District 2 and District 7 have many expat families. District 7, Phu My Hung, in particular, almost doesn't feel like being in Vietnam . . . except for the traffic!

Any school worth working at would listen to your story, might call for a reference check, but would also consider the source. International school administrators of any value maintain contact and know who the rogues are. Be honest and don't worry!

Took my first overseas job at age 28. That was 35 years ago. Longest stretch of time I've been in the USA in those 35 years is 5 weeks. Guess you could say it got into my blood!

Maybe that is the confusion. SSIS has NO connection to Cognita.

Annie T, don't know where you got your information from about Cognita having anything to do with SSIS, but it's false. Time will bear this out.

Australian International School in Saigon has developed a good reputation among parents in town for their elementary program. International School of Saigon Pearl is a relatively new school and is currently being assisted in some way by the Cognita Group that is also managing International School of Ho Chi Minh City. All of these school are for profit schools. Saigon South is a proprietary school, owned by Phu My Hung Corporation, but is not a profit generating center for the corporation.

That is an amazingly complex reply! How do you gather all this knowledge of all the intricacies of schools around the world? It seems you have a very impressive bank of knowledge!

I'm seeing 1st - 2nd - 3rd tier labels being used and wonder what criteria is used to classify schools that way:

- # of years in existence?
- how well students do when they graduate?
- how good the salary and benefits are?
- how hard teachers need to work?
- prestige established through sports or fine arts programs?
- quality of education provided (measured by??)?

Seems it could be misleading or at least confusing to try and talk about schools in this way. Who gets to determine the tier??