IB World Schools in South Korea

Are you looking for an International Baccalaureate World School in South Korea? Here you can find a list of South Korean schools that have a profile in the IB World Schools Yearbook.

The schools featured below offer at least one of the IB's four programmes: the Primary Years Programme (PYP), Middle Years Programme (MYP), Diploma Programme (DP) and Career-related Programme (CP). You can use the search filter below to look for schools that offer one programme in particular.

There are 26 IB World Schools in South Korea, most of which teach in English. Of these, 17 are authorised to deliver the International Baccalaureate Diploma. For a full list see the IB website.

Poor in natural resources, South Korea’s economic success has been powered by its highly skilled workforce and Korean citizens are noted for their educational zeal. Gross tertiary enrolment was 98 per cent in 2019, one of the highest rates in the world. 

The country’s well-established international school sector is being enlarged under a government drive to develop an English-speaking regional education hub on the island of Jeju, part of a wider effort to attract more international students. 

Since 2011, four schools have opened at Jeju Global Education City, including branch campuses of the UK’s North London Collegiate School, which routinely tops British school league tables, and prestigious Canadian girls’ boarding school Branksome Hall.

International schools are mainly centred on the capital Seoul and neighbouring Incheon, where a second education hub is taking shape. The sector is officially divided into “foreign schools”, where at least 70 per cent of students must be foreign nationals, and open-access “international schools”. 

South Korea boasts one of the world’s oldest international schools. Seoul Foreign School, which was founded in 1912, incorporates the Seoul British Foreign School, which follows the English national curriculum to the end of Key Stage Three, while parallel elementary and middle school sections offer an American-style education. 

Education is compulsory in Korea from age six to 15, but virtually all children attend school up to age 18. In the Korean-medium state system, primary school lasts six years, middle school three years and high school three years. Entry to university is determined by the College Scholastic Ability Test. 

IB World Schools are part of a thriving international school sector in South Korea. For information on all South Korean international schools, you can visit: www.internationalschoolsearch.com