HCMC considers closing American International School

Ho Tan Minh, office head of the municipal Department of Education and Training, said on Friday that the school must prove it has retained a sufficient amount of teachers, management officials and financial resources to ensure its operations.

AISVN has been unable to satisfy these requirements, he added.

If AISVN is closed down, students would be forced to switch to another school, and the department has prepared a list of schools with suitable curriculums so students can switch to them immediately, he said.

"All public and private schools teaching the International Baccalaureate (IB) program can receive the students, except for schools which have already met their student quota," Minh added.

If the proposed one-year suspension is implemented on June 15 as planned, AISVN will have one year to get back on its feet. If it does this, the department will allow it to be reopened, for the sake of investors and the students.

AISVN, established in 2006, provides curriculums under the IB program.

The school's tuition is VND280-350 million (US$11,000-13,750) a year for kindergarteners, VND450-500 million a year for primary school levels, and VND600-725 million for middle and high school levels. The school has around 130 foreign teachers, 26 Vietnamese teachers and over 100 other employees.

On March 18, the majority of the school's teachers went on strike in protest of delayed salary payments, preventing all students from attending classes.

On March 30, Nguyen Thi Ut Em, the owner of AISVN, reached out to parents, seeking an additional VND125 billion to ensure teachers' salaries are paid and to maintain school operations until the academic year concludes in June. However, only VND31 billion was raised, forcing the school to end the school year early on April 26.

Two days prior, the HCMC education department ordered AISVN to stop admitting students for the 1st, 6th and 10th grades in the next school year.