Kumamoto has one international school that takes a child all the way through in English, and this is it. That single fact shapes the decision more than anything else on this page: a family arriving for the semiconductor fab is not choosing between international schools, it is choosing between Kumamoto International School and a Japanese public school. The alternatives are narrower than they look. An international elementary division opened at Kyushu Lutheran in 2024 but covers Grades 1 to 6 only, a Christian school is still in its early stages, and the rest are preschools.
What makes KIS unusually well suited to a Taiwanese family is its Chinese. Mandarin runs from Grade 1 on two separate tracks, one for native and heritage speakers taught as Language and Literature, which is the IB's first-language route, and one for learners taking it as an additional language, and both carry into the Diploma. A child can therefore sit Chinese at the highest level rather than repeating a beginner's course, which no school in our Tokyo guide offers. The school rebuilt itself around this arrival, opening a larger campus in April 2025, and local reporting describes most of the roughly 130 children of relocating Taiwanese employees enrolling here.
The families arriving in Kumamoto are doing something unusual: moving to a small Japanese city, often for a fixed assignment of a few years, with children who are expected to return to Taiwanese or international education afterwards. That shapes what matters. Keeping Chinese alive is not a nice-to-have here, it is the thing that makes the return possible, and KIS is the reason the move works academically. The questions we hear are about the middle and senior years, where the school is newest, and about whether a place will exist at all in the grade a family needs.
We are a Taipei academy and we teach families remotely across roughly eight countries, so a Taiwanese family posted to Kumamoto is close to our core. We are not a school, we have no affiliation with KIS and no referral arrangement with any school in this guide. What we help with is specific to this situation: the English a selective, English-medium school assesses at entry, the Chinese a child needs to hold at first-language level while living in Japanese, and the preparation for whatever comes after the assignment ends, whether that is a return to Taiwan or a move onward.
The orienting facts, each drawn from the school's own materials and the IB's own directory, checked in September 2026. Figures are the school's own, in Japanese yen, and are not converted.
KIS is run by a general incorporated association and teaches in English, with rigorous Japanese and Mandarin alongside. It is an authorized IB World School for the Primary Years Programme since May 2021 and the Diploma since January 2025, and a candidate school for the Middle Years Programme, which it states itself. It is not an Article 1 school under Japanese law, and its own guidance is that pupils keep their enrollment at their local public school, with attendance and reports sent back there. It publishes its fees, which is why this guide can carry them, though a family should note the school does not claim WASC or CIS accreditation.
KIS publishes its fees by division on its own site. Course fees are billed monthly and the facility fee three times a year, so the annual figure below is this guide's arithmetic on the school's own components. All figures in yen, not converted, checked September 2026.
A year here runs at roughly a third of what Tokyo's international schools charge, which for a family moving from Taipei on a fixed assignment materially changes the calculation. Two cautions. The school publishes no corporate or employer arrangement, so whether the fab subsidises fees for its staff is a question for an employer's human resources team rather than an assumption. And the school's own pages give two different preschool admission fees, ¥100,000 on one and ¥150,000 on another, so confirm which applies.
Course fees monthly, facility maintenance three times a year. Annual figures are Harland's arithmetic on the school's components.
| Item | Primary and junior high | Preschool |
|---|---|---|
| Entrance fee, one time | ¥300,000 | ¥100,000 or ¥150,000, see note |
| Course or childcare fee | ¥83,000 a month, ¥996,000 a year | ¥70,000 a month, ¥56,000 for a sibling |
| Facility maintenance | ¥70,000 three times a year, ¥210,000 | ¥45,000 a year |
| Materials | About ¥52,000 primary, ¥158,000 junior high | Included above |
| Annual total, tuition and facility | About ¥1,206,000 | About ¥885,000 |
Source: the school's own admissions and fee pages. Lunch, uniform, insurance, and the bus are charged separately. A sibling discount is available. The high school page states a Diploma program charge of about 1,258 US dollars across the two years, which is the IB's own registration and examination cost rather than tuition, and the school states it in dollars.
| Grades served | Preschool from age two, primary Grades 1 to 6, junior high Grades 7 to 10, high school Grades 11 and 12 |
|---|---|
| Enrollment | About 300 across the school from around 19 countries, with roughly 60 staff, the school's own figures. Local reporting in mid-2025 gave about 200 across 13 countries |
| IB authorisation | Primary Years Programme 1 May 2021 and Diploma 27 January 2025, per the IB's own directory. The Middle Years Programme is a candidate program, not yet authorized |
| Diploma results | None yet. Grade 11 opened April 2025 and Grade 12 in 2026, so no cohort has sat examinations |
| Languages | English medium. Japanese daily, split by level with native and non-native taught separately. Mandarin from Grade 1 as a first language and as an additional language |
| Class size | Capped at 35 in primary, junior high, and high school, and 30 in preschool |
| Campuses | Toshima Nishi, opened April 2025, for primary and above. Nishibaru for the preschool. Both in Higashi-ku, between the city center and the fab |
| Admissions | An information session is required before applying. A published calendar, a main intake opening in June, and a late route in January. An entrance examination applies |
| Japanese status | Not an Article 1 school. Pupils keep enrollment at their local public school, and KIS reports attendance and results back to it |
| Waitlist | Not published by the school. Given concentrated demand, a family should treat places as tight and apply early |
Where a row reads "not published," the item does not appear on the school's own pages. Where the school's own pages differ, as on the preschool admission fee, both figures are shown. Directory sites variously describe KIS as founded in 2018 or offering Cambridge qualifications. Neither matches the school's own pages or the IB directory, and this guide follows the school and the IB.
KIS grew slowly for twenty years and then quickly, and the recent expansion is directly tied to the semiconductor arrival.
The school began in 2003 as Picasso Preschool, with fifteen children in rented space downtown. A primary division followed in 2018, a junior high in April 2023, and then the changes that matter most to a family reading this now: a new and much larger campus at Toshima Nishi and a high school, both opening in April 2025, with Grade 11 first and Grade 12 following in 2026. Over twenty-two years it went from a single preschool room to a school of around three hundred children from about nineteen countries.
The recent growth is not incidental. Local reporting in Kumamoto describes the expansion as built to receive the children of Taiwanese employees relocating for the fab, with about 750 employees and family members arriving and most of the roughly 130 children expected at KIS. Those figures come from local press rather than the school's own site, so this guide reports them as reporting. What the school does publish supports the picture: a purpose-built campus opened in 2025, class caps, and a Chinese program that carries native speakers to the highest level, which is not what a school builds for a general international intake.
Teaching is in English throughout, with two of the three IB programmes authorized and the third in candidacy, and with both Japanese and Mandarin taught to first-language level.
Primary, Grades 1 to 6, runs the Primary Years Programme, authorized in May 2021. Junior high, Grades 7 to 10, follows the Middle Years Programme, and here a family needs the precise position: the school states it is a candidate school for that program, meaning it teaches to the framework while authorisation is still pending. The high school runs the Diploma, authorized in January 2025. So a child entering the middle years is joining a program awaiting authorisation, and one entering the senior years is joining a Diploma with no graduating cohort behind it. Neither is disqualifying, but both are worth knowing before a family commits.
The language provision is the school's real strength. Japanese is taught daily and split by level, with native and non-native speakers taught separately, and because most pupils are Japanese nationals the school teaches reading, writing, and kanji to the standard of a local elementary school. Mandarin runs on the same two-track logic from Grade 1, as Language and Literature for native and heritage speakers and as an additional language for learners, and both continue into the Diploma, where a student can take Chinese as a first language alongside English and Japanese. For a Taiwanese family this is the decisive feature, and it is more than the schools in our Tokyo guide offer, where only one teaches Mandarin at all and none as a first language.
The senior school is too new to have outcomes, and this guide says so rather than filling the gap with something else.
The Diploma was authorized in January 2025, Grade 11 opened that April, and Grade 12 followed in 2026. A first cohort therefore has not yet sat examinations, and the school publishes no Diploma averages, pass rates, or university destinations, because none exist. Nor does it publish detailed destinations for earlier leavers, who until recently finished at the end of junior high and moved on elsewhere. A family choosing KIS for the senior years is backing the program on the strength of the primary and middle years and the staff, which is a reasonable basis but a different one from a published record.
This is the third school in our Japan coverage in that position, alongside two Tokyo schools whose Diplomas are also new, so it is a feature of the moment rather than a fault in this school. What a family can reasonably ask admissions for is the subject list the Diploma will offer, since a small cohort constrains choice more than a large one does, and specifically whether Chinese as a first language will run in the Diploma for their child's year. The school offers it in principle, and in a small school the question is whether the numbers support it in a given cohort.
The process begins with an information session, which the school requires before an application, so a family cannot apply cold. KIS publishes its admissions calendar a year ahead, with a main intake opening in June and a later route in January for families whose plans firm up late, which suits an assignment confirmed at short notice. The application asks for the school's own form, a photograph, a health survey, a copy of an English proficiency certificate, a recent transcript, and a recommendation letter, and the child sits an entrance examination. Entry into Grade 12 is not normally accepted, and the school will consider it only for a student already in a Diploma school whose subjects match what KIS offers.
The practical difficulty is capacity. The school publishes class caps of thirty-five in primary and above and thirty in preschool, but no waitlist mechanism, and demand in this city is concentrated in a way it is not elsewhere: a single school absorbing the children of one employer's relocations. A family should apply as early as a posting allows, ask directly about the specific grade, and have a fallback in mind. That fallback is usually a Japanese public school, which is free, open to foreign children, and increasingly supported: Kumamoto City has been building Japanese-language support since Taiwanese pupils began arriving in 2024.
Harland is not a school and does not replace KIS. We are a 1-on-1 tutoring academy in Taipei working with families remotely across roughly eight countries, and in Kumamoto the needs are unusually clear because the situation is unusually specific.
For a full education in English, yes. KIS is the only school in the prefecture running an English-medium pathway from preschool to Grade 12. The alternatives are narrower: an international elementary division opened at Kyushu Lutheran in 2024 covering Grades 1 to 6 only, a Christian school still in its early stages, and several preschools. For most arriving families the real choice is KIS or a Japanese public school.
Two are authorized and one is not yet. The Primary Years Programme was authorized in May 2021 and the Diploma in January 2025. The Middle Years Programme, which covers Grades 7 to 10, is a candidate program and not yet authorized, which the school states itself. A family with a child in those middle years should ask the school where authorisation stands before assuming it.
Yes, and this is the school's strongest feature for a Taiwanese family. Mandarin runs from Grade 1 on two tracks, one for native and heritage speakers taught as Language and Literature, the IB's first-language route, and one for learners taking it as an additional language. Both continue into the Diploma, so a child can sit Chinese as a first language at the highest level rather than repeating a beginner's course.
For primary and junior high the school publishes a one-time entrance fee of ¥300,000, course fees of ¥83,000 a month, so ¥996,000 a year, and a facility maintenance fee of ¥70,000 charged three times a year, so ¥210,000. That comes to about ¥1,206,000 a year, plus materials of roughly ¥52,000 in primary and ¥158,000 in junior high, and lunch, uniform, and insurance. A first year with the entrance fee is close to ¥1,500,000. A sibling discount is available.
No. The Diploma was authorized in January 2025, Grade 11 opened that April, and Grade 12 followed in 2026, so the first candidates have not yet sat their examinations and the school has no results or university destinations to publish. A family choosing KIS for the senior years is backing a program on the strength of its primary and middle years.
Our Student Coordinator speaks with relocating Taiwanese families regularly, often before a posting is confirmed, and can help you think through the entrance examination, how to keep a child's Chinese at first-language level through the assignment, and what to do if the grade you need is full. We work with families remotely from Taipei. We start by listening.