🇮🇩 Jakarta · Schools
Schooling and childcare in Jakarta
A small, expensive and well-established international sector concentrated in the south of the city, where the commute decides the neighbourhood.
The thing people get wrongJakarta Intercultural School, the British School and the main alternatives sit south and west of the centre. Families almost always choose the school first and then live along its bus route, because a Jakarta school run done the wrong way round is two hours a day.
The sector
The long-established international schools — JIS in Pondok Indah, the British School Jakarta in Bintaro, the Australian Independent School, ACG and the French and German schools — teach IB, British or national curricula in English and charge accordingly. Below them sits a large tier of national-plus and bilingual schools following the Indonesian curriculum with substantial English provision, at a fraction of the cost and with more variable outcomes.
- Full international: English medium, foreign curriculum, fees at the top of the range.
- National-plus and bilingual: Indonesian curriculum with English delivery, far cheaper.
- The international academic year usually starts in August.
- Places at the best-known schools in popular year groups can be genuinely scarce.
Applying
Apply directly to each school, well ahead. Expect an application fee, assessment, English screening and the last two years of reports. Many Jakarta international schools also charge a substantial one-off development or capital levy on entry, separately from tuition, and it is large enough that leaving it out of a budget is a real error.
- Documents: passport, permit or visa, birth certificate, immunisation record, two years of reports.
- A one-off development or capital fee on entry is common and substantial.
- English support is often charged separately.
- A term's notice is normally required to withdraw.
The bus decides where you live
Every established school runs buses, and the route map is effectively a map of where families live. Ask for it, and for realistic collection times, before you commit to an area — Jakarta traffic turns a short distance into a long journey and the difference between two addresses can be an hour of a child's day.
- Bus fees are annual and priced by zone.
- Collection for outer zones starts early; ask what time, not what distance.
- Pondok Indah, Bintaro, Kemang and Cipete cluster around the main schools for this reason.
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