International Schools in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia: A Guide for Foreign Families

Introduction

Hohhot (呼和浩特), the capital of Inner Mongolia, has two schools that appear when foreign families search for education options. One is East Shore IVY School (东岸艾原学校). The other is Maple Leaf — which appears under at least four different English names. This guide explains what each school actually is, who each one is allowed to admit, and what it costs.

The first thing to understand is what Hohhot does not have. China licenses a special category of school called a school for children of foreign personnel (外籍人员子女学校). These schools may teach a foreign curriculum and admit only foreign passport holders. There is no school of this kind in Hohhot, and none anywhere in Inner Mongolia. The Ministry of Education lists have never included the region.

So both schools in this guide are Chinese private bilingual schools (民办双语学校). They are built for Chinese families. That does not mean a foreign child cannot attend — it means the rules that decide whether your child can attend are Chinese local school rules, and those rules differ sharply between these two schools.

See also: Alifa's guide to Chinese public schools for foreign children, which covers what documents a foreign family typically needs and how eligibility is determined across different cities.

Alifa checked both schools against the Inner Mongolia and Hohhot government approval records, the IBO school directory, the British Columbia offshore school register and the Chinese corporate registry on 9 September 2026. Where a claim could not be matched to a record, this guide says so rather than repeating it.

Moving to Hohhot: What the City Is Like

Hohhot had about 3.64 million residents at the end of 2024. The city sits at roughly 1,050 metres above sea level on the edge of the Mongolian plateau. January averages about −11.6°C and the record low is −32.8°C. Central heating runs from 15 October to 15 April. Air quality is reasonable by Chinese standards — 312 good-or-better days in 2024, PM2.5 around 29 micrograms per cubic metre. Confirmed — Hohhot Statistics Bureau, 2025

Living costs are low. A three-bedroom rental in Saihan District is commonly listed between RMB 1,800 and 3,200 a month — roughly a quarter to a third of Beijing rents. For a broader picture of what relocating to China for school looks like, see Alifa's guide for families moving to China for school.

Visas and registration

Residence permits are handled at the Hohhot Public Security Bureau exit-entry office in Xincheng District. The legal decision period is 15 working days from acceptance. Work permits go through the regional science and technology department and the human resources department, applied online by the employer before you travel. If you rent an apartment rather than staying in a hotel, you or your landlord must register your stay with the local police station within 24 hours. Failure carries a warning and a fine of up to RMB 2,000. See Alifa's complete guide to the X1 and X2 student visas in China for document requirements.

Community, food and healthcare

Hohhot has a long-established Muslim quarter. Huimin District (回民区) has several mosques, including the Great Mosque on Tongdao South Street dating from 1693, and a concentrated halal restaurant district on Niu Street. For families from Central Asia and the Middle East, halal food is not a problem here. Confirmed

Mongolia has a consulate general in Hohhot, and the China-Mongolia Expo is permanently hosted in the city. The Inner Mongolia International Mongolian Medicine Hospital treated more than 30,000 Mongolian nationals in 2025 alone and runs a Mongolian-language service window. No official record of a Russian or Central Asian community organisation was found.

For English-language medical care, expectations should be modest. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region People's Hospital is the only Hohhot hospital marked as having English service on the National Health Commission's English-language listing. No hospital in Hohhot has a confirmed international department of the kind found in Beijing or Shanghai. For anything complex, Beijing is 2 hours 9 minutes away by high-speed rail, with about 30 trains a day.

Getting in and out

Baita International Airport currently flies direct to Ulaanbaatar, Bangkok, Phuket, Seoul, Nha Trang and Hong Kong. A replacement airport, Shengle International, is built but its opening date is still listed as undetermined. Families should not assume a direct flight home — most will connect through Beijing.

Four local universities take international students, mostly from Mongolia and Russia, and three run Chinese-language programmes that adults can join. There is no approved school for children of foreign personnel in Hohhot — a critical distinction covered in the next section.

Start with Eligibility, Not Curriculum

In China, compulsory education means Grades 1 to 9. Private schools at this stage are tightly controlled. Every district publishes an annual admissions plan that says who a private school may recruit, and schools must stay inside it. For a full explanation of how foreign children enter Chinese schools, see Alifa's guide to Chinese public schools for foreign children.

The Saihan District plan for 2026, issued under municipal document 呼教通字〔2026〕46号, names two groups of eligible children: children with household registration in Hohhot's four urban districts, and the children of migrant workers holding employment and residence documents. Private primary schools may recruit only within the district that approved them. Private junior secondary schools in Saihan may in principle recruit only within Saihan, and are specifically barred from recruiting across city or provincial lines. The plan contains no clause about foreign nationals or about Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan students. There is simply no route written down. Confirmed — Saihan District 2026 admissions plan

Horinger works differently — and this is the single most useful fact in this guide. The Horinger admissions plan names Maple Leaf directly and states that the school recruits independently from the general public, under municipal meeting record 呼和浩特市人民政府专题会议纪要〔2019〕129号. It is not tied to a catchment. That gives it discretion that East Shore does not have. Confirmed — Horinger 2025 admissions plan

High school is outside compulsory education, so restrictions loosen considerably. Maple Leaf's high school is a for-profit school that admits on its own entrance assessment and accepts a passport on the application form.

East Shore IVY School (东岸艾原学校)

Full registered name: 呼和浩特市赛罕区东岸艾原学校. Also written as East Shore Ivy School. Address: south-east corner of East Shore International Phase 3, Ruyi Development Zone, Saihan District (赛罕区如意开发区东岸国际三期东南角). Website: eastshoreivyschool.com.

This is a new school. It was registered as a non-profit private institution (民办非企业单位) on 26 February 2026, with unified credit code 52150105MJ2265925R, RMB 500,000 in startup funds and Zhou Jiangang (周建岗) as legal representative. The school says it opened in March 2026 with an opening ceremony on 2 March.

What could not be confirmed

The school's operating licence (民办学校办学许可证) does not appear in the Saihan District administrative approval ledger, which does publish other education licences including kindergarten ones. Alifa found no licence number, no approval document and no record of approved school stages. That is not proof that no licence exists. It does mean the school's stages, capacity and permissions cannot be independently confirmed by a parent. Not published

The school's own materials disagree with each other. Its website describes a nine-year school covering primary and junior secondary. Its recruitment advertising describes a twelve-year school. Its brochure adds an "international exchange centre" and a high school. Nothing found in any government record supports a licensed high school. The recruitment advertising also says the school opened in March 2025 — a year earlier than the website says.

The campus is described as 30 mu (approximately 2 hectares / 4.9 acres) in some materials and 50 mu (approximately 3.3 hectares / 8.2 acres) in others. No planning approval or completion record was found for the site or the facilities listed in the brochure, including a swimming pool, a rooftop golf area, a black-box theatre and a 500-seat dining hall.

The IB claim

East Shore does not appear in the IBO's public school directory. Candidate status cannot be verified by the public — the IBO does not publish candidate lists. Alifa found no page, announcement or document confirming the stated PYP candidacy date of 28 April 2026, and no record of an MYP or DP application. For a full list of IB-authorised schools in China, see Alifa's IB schools guide.

The claim that East Shore is the first IB school in Inner Mongolia is not correct. Inner Mongolia already has an IB-authorised school: Yuwen Princeton Kindergarten in Baotou (包头), authorised for the Primary Years Programme since 1 December 2021. It is the region's only authorised IB school as of 9 September 2026. Reported in public record

The school's brochure also carries logos of the IB Diploma Programme, Cambridge International A Levels, AP and the College Board, the HKDSE, and the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. The English text says the high school will offer these in future. Alifa searched the Cambridge school register, College Board CEEB codes, HKDSE centre lists and the Ontario BSID register and found no record of this school in any of them. Read the logos as intentions, not as available programmes. Not published

The kindergarten is a different company

East Shore's materials give a third phone number for a kindergarten on North Yinhe Street (银河北街). The licensed operator at that location is 呼和浩特市赛罕区艾荷幼儿园有限公司, credit code 91150105MA7YN63K52, education licence 215010560900869, valid 21 January 2024 to 20 January 2027. It is a company — not a non-profit institution — and a separate legal entity from the school. If you enrol a younger child there and an older child at the school, you are contracting with two different organisations. Confirmed — corporate registry

Fees, boarding and size

No fee schedule has been published, by the school or in any government fee filing. No boarding information has been published. Current enrolment and the actual number of classes running are not published; the figures of 36 classes and 25 students per class are plans. Claims that 80 percent of English teachers have overseas backgrounds and that half hold master's degrees come from recruitment advertising and could not be checked. No foreign teacher work permit records were found. Not published

Maple Leaf, Horinger New Area — Four Names, Two Licences

Maple Leaf International Schools operate across multiple Chinese cities. The Horinger campus is one campus at No. 1 Shengguo Road, Horinger New Area (和林格尔新区盛国路), with two separately licensed schools. It opened in September 2020. Website: horinger.mapleleaf.cn.

Clearing up the name confusion

• 内蒙古和林格尔新区枫叶双语学校 — a non-profit institution, credit code 52150123MJY410318R, scope "nine-year compulsory education", certificate valid 11 June 2026 to 18 November 2029.
• 呼和浩特市枫叶双语高级中学有限公司 — a for-profit high school company, credit code 91150118MA0R6NH99X, approved 30 April 2021 by the Hohhot administrative approval bureau, wholly owned by Shenzhen Maple Leaf Education Group.
• Maple Leaf International School – Hohhot and Maple Leaf School Hohhot — the group's English names for the campus.
• Maple Leaf World School Hohhot and Maple Leaf Bilingual School – Horinger — marketing names. "Maple Leaf World School" is the group's curriculum brand, not a legal name.

The Maple Leaf school in Ordos's Dongsheng District (鄂尔多斯东胜区枫叶双语学校) is a completely separate school, about 340 km away, opened in 2012 with around 1,000 students. It is not a branch and does not share a management team. Confirmed

Pre-school: no separate licence found

The licensed scope is Grades 1 to 9. The school nonetheless recruits younger children into a mixed-age pre-school class (预科混龄班) at RMB 13,000 per term and a primary preparation class (小学预科) at RMB 26,000 per year. No separate kindergarten licence or pre-school registration was found. If you have a child under six, ask the school which permit that class operates under before paying anything. Not published

Curriculum and the diploma

Grades 1 to 9 follow the Chinese national curriculum with state-approved textbooks, plus the group's own English programme — ten periods a week, taught jointly by Chinese and foreign teachers, with streaming by level. The high school runs the group's own Maple Leaf World School Curriculum. Students take 26 credits and receive a diploma issued by Maple Leaf Education Group, accredited by Cognia and benchmarked by UK Ecctis. School-reported

Three things follow from that. The exit document is a group diploma with third-party accreditation, not a national school-leaving certificate from another country. The school is not on the British Columbia offshore school register — the only Maple Leaf schools there are in Dalian, Wuhan and Yiwu, all schools for children of foreign personnel. And the AP content is described by the school without a College Board school code, so whether these are authorised AP courses could not be confirmed.

For families considering boarding in China more broadly, Alifa's guide to boarding schools in China covers how the boarding system works and what to check before committing.

The group behind it

Maple Leaf Education Group is listed in Hong Kong as stock code 1317. Its shares were suspended from 3 May 2022 and resumed trading on 2 November 2023. It redeemed its outstanding bonds in February 2024. For the first half of 2025/26, revenue fell 11.2 percent overall and 20.3 percent in China. Overseas operations now make up 66.4 percent of revenue. No closure, wage arrears or fee disruption has been reported at the Horinger campus. Confirmed — HKEX filings

Maple Leaf — Results and Size

The high school's first cohort graduated in 2024. The school reports 117 overseas university offers across its first two cohorts, 80 of them from QS top-100 universities, and RMB 874,000 in total scholarships. For the 2025 cohort it reports a 28.57 percent offer rate from QS top-20 universities. For 2026 it reports two offers from UCL and three from Edinburgh. All figures come from the school and none has been independently verified. No IELTS or TOEFL averages are published. School-reported

Enrolment is not published for any stage. The group's accounts report 8,385 students across all its schools worldwide in 2025 without a campus breakdown. One indirect signal: the approved 2025 Grade 1 intake plan was two classes, 60 places. This is a small school on a large site.

Side by Side

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The honest summary: these two schools are not competing for the same family. Maple Leaf is an operating school with published fees, boarding, six years of history, a first graduating cohort and a legal basis for admitting a child from outside the area. East Shore is six months old, has published no fees, has no verifiable licence record, and sits under district rules that give a foreign family no stated route in. For a family relocating from abroad in 2026, Maple Leaf is the school to approach first, and East Shore is a school to watch.

What Alifa Checked

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Last reviewed 9 September 2026 by Alifa Education. Admission rules and fees change — always confirm with the school before making any payment.

Ask the School Before You Pay a Deposit

Both schools left real questions open. Both are reachable — Maple Leaf's admissions line is 0471-2855011. Take this list to the admissions office and ask for the answers in writing or by message, not by phone. You will also want to read Alifa's guides on guardianship and notarization for foreign students and the X1/X2 student visa before approaching either school.

Ask both schools

• Show me the operating licence (办学许可证): the number, the issuing authority, the approved stages and the expiry date.
• On what legal basis can you admit a child holding a foreign passport at this stage, and which document in the district admissions plan permits it?
• Exactly which documents do you require from a foreign family: passport, residence permit, parent's work permit, residence registration, guardianship letter, health check?
• Give me the current term's fee schedule in writing, including meals, uniform, bus and any charge that differs for a foreign student.
• How much Chinese does a child need to join this year group, and what support exists for a child who arrives with none?

Ask Maple Leaf specifically

• Will you board a child whose parents do not live in Hohhot, and from which grade? What are the weekend arrangements?
• Which permit does the pre-school preparation class operate under, given the licensed scope is Grades 1 to 9?
• Does a school bus currently serve the four urban districts, and on what routes?
• What document does a graduate actually receive, and what are the Cognia and Ecctis reference numbers so I can check them?

Ask East Shore specifically

• Is this a nine-year or twelve-year school, and is there a licensed high school? If so, show the approval document.
• Please show the IBO letter confirming PYP candidacy and its date, and the current MYP stage.
• What is the status of the A Level, AP, HKDSE, IB Diploma and OSSD programmes shown in your brochure, and do you hold any authorisation number from those bodies?
• What is the "international exchange centre", and which overseas institution is the partner?
• How many students and how many classes are actually running this term?

A school that answers these clearly is worth visiting. A school that will not put its licence and fees in writing is telling you something.