What Academic Excellence Actually Measures

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam, May 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- About the author: Mr. Marco Longmore is Head of School at the International School Ho Chi Minh City (ISHCMC), one of Vietnam's leading international schools offering the full IB continuum from Early Years to Grade 12. ISHCMC has served the international community of Ho Chi Minh City for more than 30 years.

Perhaps, the most important question a parent can ask is 'How do I know if my child is getting an excellent education?' In my experience, most parents expect me to respond with a list of IB scores, university destinations, or league table rankings. And I understand why. These are the metrics the international school sector has trained families to look for. They are visible, comparable, and satisfying in their simplicity.

But they are only part of the story and at ISHCMC, we have spent more than 30 years learning that the part they leave out is often the most important part of all.

Let me be clear. We are very proud of our academic outcomes, past and present. Our students consistently achieve an average IB score of 34, meaningfully above the global average of 30. Our university placement rate is 100%, with 98% of graduates securing places at their first-choice institution. These are not numbers we take for granted. They are evidence of genuine intellectual effort, superb teaching, and a culture that takes learning seriously.

But if you ask me what those numbers actually represent, I will tell you: they are the visible surface of something much deeper. They are the result of an education, one that is concerned with who a student is becoming as well as the academic score they are achieving. Our IB average of 34 is evidence of a culture of intellectual ambition where students are encouraged to think deeply, take intellectual risks, and pursue their passions. 

I will often say that at ISHCMC we take education seriously and rightly so.  But just because it is serious, it does not need to be complicated.  Get the basics right. The basics are that we educate to grow the mind, the body, and the heart. That is the strength of a premium education worldwide.

Beyond Grades: A More Complete Picture Of Learning

At ISHCMC, we track something we call learning capacity.  This is the ability of a student not just to perform on a given test, but to grow, adapt, and sustain intellectual curiosity over time. It is the difference between a student who learns for an exam and one who learns for life. As William Butler Yeats famously wrote, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

That distinction sits at the heart of how we think about learning at ISHCMC. Our responsibility is not simply to deliver knowledge, but to ignite the intellectual curiosity that sustains learning far beyond school.

One of the most powerful tools we use to measure this is MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) data, which tracks individual learning trajectories from Grade 3 through Grade 10. Rather than simply recording where a student lands, MAP shows us where they started, how fast they are growing, and whether our teaching is reaching every child, not just the most academically confident ones. Progress, not just performance, is what drives our decisions.

Then there is our bilingual diploma rate. Currently 57% of our IBDP students are pursuing the full bilingual diploma, more than double the global rate of 23%. I regard this as one of the most striking indicators of intellectual ambition and cultural competence in our school community. Earning a bilingual diploma requires a student to master complex, abstract concepts across multiple languages. It demands cognitive flexibility, disciplined effort, and the courage to work in discomfort. It is not easy. That is precisely why we celebrate it.

Consider one of our current Grade 11 students, Huan-Ming Chang, who has just been selected as a Global Finalist for the 2026 GENIUS Olympiad, an international environmental project competition with a 25% acceptance rate. Out of thousands of submissions worldwide, his project advanced to the final stage at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. What strikes me about his story is not the competition selection itself. It is the intellectual journey: the research questions he refined, the environmental challenges he grappled with, the growing confidence in his own voice as a problem-solver. The competition will open doors. The journey has already shaped who he is becoming.

Across our school, we see this reflected in learning dispositions that we explicitly develop and assess such as curiosity, resilience, collaboration, and ethical reasoning. These are not soft add-ons to a rigorous curriculum. They are the foundations on which rigorous learning is built. They are also precisely the qualities that employers, universities, and communities most need from the next generation of graduates. With 95+ student activities and 26+ IPAA programmes, we create a structured space for these dispositions to develop, not by accident, but by design.

How ISHCMC Develops Confident, Capable Learners

The institutional conditions that make this possible are not accidental. They are the product of deliberate, sustained investment over three decades.

ISHCMC offers the full IB continuum from Early Years through to Grade 12, one of the few schools in Vietnam to do so. This matters because genuine educational continuity allows us to track and support each student's growth across their entire school career. A child who joins us in Primary is not starting over when they enter Secondary. Their teachers know them. Their learning profile is understood. Their growth trajectory is actively monitored and supported.

Our faculty are experienced international educators who bring both subject expertise and pedagogical depth. But what distinguishes our teachers is something harder to quantify: their commitment to knowing their students. At ISHCMC, academic rigour and pastoral care are not in tension but are deliberately integrated. Our robust wellbeing systems exist not as a safety net for students who fall through, but as a framework that allows every student to take intellectual risks without fear of being unsupported.

In 2025, ISHCMC was recognised as an Apple Distinguished School, an acknowledgement that we are not simply adopting technology, but thoughtfully integrating it in ways that enhance learning rather than substitute for it. Our 1:1 technology programme with iPads from Grade 2 to 5, MacBooks from Grade 6 to 12, gives students fluency with the digital tools they will use throughout their careers, alongside the critical thinking skills to use them wisely.

For students approaching the final years of their schooling, we offer three senior pathways and 34+ IBDP course options, allowing genuine personalisation. Academic excellence, in our view, does not look the same for every student. A student who finds their intellectual passion in visual arts and earns a strong IB score in that discipline has achieved something just as significant as one who excels in mathematics. Our Makerspaces, Innovation Centre, and the breadth of our co-curricular programmes are designed to ensure that every student can find and pursue their own area of excellence.

Our community of 60+ nationalities is not a marketing statistic. It is a living curriculum. Students who learn alongside peers from different cultural backgrounds who navigate genuine disagreement, celebrate unfamiliar traditions and build friendships across differences are developing competencies that no examination can fully assess but that every institution and employer values deeply.  At ISHCMC, academic rigour and pastoral care are not in tension but are deliberately integrated.

What Parents Should Look For In A School

Over the years, I have spoken with hundreds of prospective families. The most thoughtful conversations are rarely about our IB average. They are about the questions parents are not quite sure how to ask, the ones that are concerned about what really matters for their child.

So here is the framework I offer to every family that visits us. When evaluating any school, including ours, ask these questions and listen carefully to how the school answers them. 'How do you measure student growth over time and not just outcomes, but the rate of learning itself?' A school that can answer this question with specific data and individual examples is a school that genuinely knows its students.

Another one to ask is, 'How do you support students who struggle?' Excellence is not a destination reached only by the naturally gifted. It is something built, often through difficulty. The quality of a school's response to challenges, its pastoral systems, its academic support, its culture around failure would tell you more about its values than any league table position.

Perhaps, you can ask 'What happens when a student fails?' The answer to this question reveals a school's deepest beliefs about learning. Schools that treat failure as evidence of inadequacy produce students who avoid risk. Schools that treat failure as a necessary part of growth produce students who innovate.

And finally, ask 'How do you develop character alongside academics?' Any school that separates these two things has misunderstood both of them.

One of our alumni, now ten years out of ISHCMC, is a camera operator at Seven Network in Sydney. When we asked what ISHCMC gave him, he spoke about belonging: "The school fostered my passion for filmmaking. There were supportive teachers and classmates who believed in what I was trying to do and guided me toward the right path." The IB prepared him for university. But it was learning in a community that nurtured his passions that prepared him for everything else. That is the education we are trying to deliver.

The Future of International Education

We are educating students for a world that is moving faster than any curriculum can fully anticipate. The World Economic Forum's research on the skills of the future consistently identifies critical thinking, adaptability, cultural competence, and complex problem-solving as the most valuable capacities graduates can develop. These are not separable from academic excellence but are the deepest expression of it. As John Dewey observed, "Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself."

In a world of increasing complexity, this reminds us that education cannot be reduced to a set of outcomes or credentials. It must be understood as a lived experience, one that shapes how students think, act, and contribute long before and long after they leave school.

At ISHCMC, we have been working on this for more than 30 years. We carry the legacy of an institution that was built on the belief that excellent education is about developing human beings, their intellect, their character, their sense of belonging, and their capacity to shape a future that is better than the one they inherited.

That legacy is not a museum piece. It is our daily work. It is the teacher who stays late to help a student work through a concept they have not yet grasped. It is in the student community that genuinely includes every child, regardless of where they started. It is in the graduate who is not only admitted to a great university but who arrives there prepared for the intellectual challenge, the social complexity, and the personal growth that awaits them.

The IB score matters. But it matters most as evidence of something deeper: a young person who has learned how to learn, who knows who they are, and who is ready to shape their future with confidence and purpose.

If you are exploring schools for your child and asking the right questions, the ones that go beyond rankings and scores, I would very much welcome the opportunity to show you what that education looks like in practice.

Excellence at ISHCMC is not an outcome we chase. It is a standard we hold, one that has shaped generations of learners, and that we believe empowers students to think critically, act ethically, and lead with confidence on the global stage. That is the legacy we are proud to continue.

ISHCMC AT A GLANCE

34 Average IB Diploma score (vs 30 global average)
100% University placement rate | 98% first-choice success
57% Bilingual Diploma rate (vs 23% globally)
60+ Nationalities in our school community
95+ Student activities and co-curricular programmes
26+ IPAA programmes supporting holistic development
34+ IBDP course options across 3 senior pathways
30+ Years of educational excellence in Ho Chi Minh City
2025 Apple Distinguished School: AI-supported learning

SOURCE International School Ho Chi Minh City (ISHCMC)