International schools in Venezuela

Are you looking for an international school in Venezuela? You can find a list of selected schools at the bottom of this page. Use the search filters to select only girls' or boys' schools, prep schools, senior schools or sixth forms; or you can search for schools that offer a particular curriculum, such as the International Baccalaureate, the UK or US national curriculum or the International Primary Curriculum.

Venezuela has a long-established international education sector centred on the capital Caracas that includes schools offering the curriculums of the UK, the US, Germany, France, Italy and the International Baccalaureate Organisation.

However, enrolment has been affected by the economic and political crises that followed the 1999 Bolivarian Revolution and today many large international school campuses have just a few hundred students.  

Coeducational day schools predominate, along with many Catholic foundations. There are 13 IB World Schools, which all offer the IB Diploma. Colegio Internacional de Caracas and The Washington Academy combine the IB Diploma with an American-style education, while the British School Caracas, blends it with the English national curriculum and IGCSEs. Colegio Humboldt Caracas, founded in 1894, offers the German Abitur, operating both German-medium and Spanish-medium streams.  

There are also 15 Italian schools that were set up by Venezuela’s large Italian community but most now teach the Venezuelan curriculum in Spanish. One, Colegio Agustin Codazzi, is authorised by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to offer the Italian national curriculum. 

Accrediting bodies active in Venezuela include Cognia, which incorporates the former Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and the Council of British International Schools.

Education is compulsory from age six to 16, while public institutions are free at all levels. Six years of basic education are followed by three years of middle school and two of senior school, where students opt for sciences or humanities. 

Since 1999, there has been an exodus of more than 1.5 million Venezuelans from the country, including a brain drain of graduates and academics. While major education reforms have been enacted over the period, the number of out-of-school children has soared since 2010.  

By 2017, there were 324,992 children and 232,335 teenagers not in school – up by more than 200,000 and 100,000 respectively. In 2017, net enrolment was 73 per cent at secondary level, 87 per cent at primary level and 68 per cent at pre-schools. No figures are available from UNESCO on tertiary enrolment in Venezuela.