Dipont Education: The Complete Guide to China's Internationalized School Network

Introduction

Dipont Education (狄邦教育) has been a big name in China’s international curriculum for years. But there isn’t much detailed information about it in English. This guide brings together its corporate history and leadership. It also covers all seven independent K–12 schools. Plus, it includes the public schools that offer A-Level, AP, and IB programmes.

All information comes from Dipont’s official pages, partner schools, and government announcements. Each claim has a link.

Dipont Education at a Glance

Dipont Education works from Shanghai. It designs and runs international K–12 education in China. It has two main areas of focus: independent bilingual schools that it runs directly, and international curriculum centres embedded in top public high schools across China.

What Is Dipont Education?

Dipont Education is the trading name of a group based in Shanghai. The official registered entity is Shanghai Dipont Education Management Co., Ltd. (上海狄邦教育管理有限公司), registered in May 2004 with RMB 20 million in registered capital. The Dipont brand itself is older, tracing back to 1990. It began in Australia as a private firm helping Chinese students with visas and studying abroad. In 1994, it shifted its focus to mainland China.

Dipont has two main business lines. Confusing them is the most common mistake people make about the company.

The partner-school model came first. Dipont was the first Cambridge International Examinations partner in China, in 2003. In 2004, it opened its first A-Level centre at the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China (RDFZ) in Beijing. The independent-school model began a decade later, following a 2014 agreement with King’s College School, Wimbledon (KCS), to create separate bilingual campuses.

Company History: From Visa Consultancy to School Operator

Dipont’s evolution has three phases. It began as a study-abroad consultancy in the 1990s. It evolved into a curriculum centre inside public schools from 2003 onward. It became a school founder starting in 2014.

Dates come from Dipont’s own official history page, cross-checked against school-specific announcements. Where a date is disputed by conflicting Dipont-affiliated sources, that is noted.

Who Leads Dipont Education? Leadership & Governance

Dipont is privately held. It does not share details about its owners or investors. There is no public information on funding, M&A, or IPO history, and no official source confirms any of this. This guide will not speculate. What is publicly documented is its leadership team:

Dipont’s Independent Schools: Complete 2026 Directory

These are the seven campuses Dipont either founded and directly operates, or co-founded as a named partner. Each independent school offers a mix of curricular and co-curricular programmes, available in both Chinese national and international tracks.

Ownership and governance are quite different between them. Each school’s details are listed below. This matters more than the marketing pages show.

In 2025, Dipont folded a second, previously separate campus into this school as its Huishan Campus. That campus, Wuxi Yinghe Bilingual School (无锡英禾双语学校), had been founded independently by Dipont in 2019. If you have seen “Wuxi Yinghe” referenced anywhere, that is now this school’s second site rather than a separate institution. See Alifa’s Wuxi Dipont school profile for admissions detail.

Chengdu is the only one of Dipont’s independent schools to retain the King’s College School name after the 2022 rebrand cycle. See Alifa’s Dipont KCS Chengdu profile for admissions detail.

This is a different governance shape from Wuxi, Hangzhou, Kunshan and Chengdu. Dipont is a partner in this venture, but not the founder-operator. The other two seats are held by a government development platform and NFLS.

Dipont has a new campus. It is the first one in South China, delivering international high school programmes through A-Level, AP and IGCSE. Like Nanjing, it is a three-way project rather than a Dipont-founded school outright. Zhonghui Education Group runs the area. Dipont gives the curriculum. KCS provides staff and management.

By 2026, Dipont refers to the Changzhou project as “additional school projects” still in development. There is no campus, opening date, or name listed. After seven years, it appears more like a shelved project than an active one. Dipont does have a presence in the city at Changzhou Senior High School, where it runs an Advanced Placement centre — but that is separate from the proposed KCS campus. That campus opened in Shenzhen in 2025.

Dipont’s Partner-School Network: A-Level, AP & IB Centres

Before Dipont started its own school, it focused on placing international “curriculum centres” in Chinese public high schools. This is still its biggest area. The host school is a public school. Dipont offers an international qualification. They also supply expatriate teachers and manage academics for one cohort. Dipont’s own site no longer publishes a single master list of every active centre.

The table below was created and checked school-by-school from Dipont’s official partner pages:

Dipont’s history page states it has “almost 30” partner schools now. This is up from about 25–26 in 2018–2020. The growth has been steady and gradual, not a sudden increase. The 23 above are the centres we could verify against a live, current Dipont or partner-school source. A few names that surface only in older or third-party listings could not be confirmed as currently active, so they are left out until they can be.

Is Dipont Education Accredited? Track Record & Trust Signals

Dipont lacks a single group-wide accreditation. Each curriculum has its own examining body. Accreditation belongs to the individual school or centre, not to Dipont as a whole.

CAIE has worked with Dipont since 2003. They offer IGCSE and A-Level courses. Many schools use these programmes.

College Board (Advanced Placement) — AP is offered at many of Dipont’s partner schools. This includes schools in Tianjin, Suzhou, and Wuxi Jiangsu Tianyi. Several RDFZ branches also offer AP.

The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) gave Dipont permission to run IB programmes in 2011. It started with the IB Diploma Programme. Today, this programme runs at the High School Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the High School Attached to Northeast Normal University.

The most clear and repeated official figures are over 30,000 graduates since 2004. There are also more than 600 international educators in the network. Other Dipont-affiliated sources cite different totals depending on scope. In 2025, Dipont announced it had over 2,000 professional educators across its network. This number probably includes Chinese national teachers — it does not only count international educators. Where official numbers genuinely conflict, this guide reports the range rather than picking one.

Disclosure: Alifa Education Services is an independent education placement consultancy. We may earn a referral fee from partner schools when families enrol, at no extra cost to the family. Our recommendations are based on fit, not fee structure.