1956

Humble Beginnings in Bandung

In the mid 50s, around 150 German doctors were stationed all around Indonesia, working for the World Health Organization. Unaccustomed to the tropical weather, they sent their kids to the much cooler city of Bandung, leading to the founding of the German School in 1956. The small group of founders managed to find teachers and working staff among the many German, Swiss and Austrian guest lecturers that were teaching in Bandung, who voluntarily offered to teach the small learning group.

1957

Official Inauguration

Support soon came from the German government, as they purchased an exclusive building and hired the school’s first principal a year after the foundation. The school was officially opened on the 23rd of March 1957 in the presence of representatives of the Indonesian Foreign and Education Ministers. Surprisingly, the ministers greeted the guests in the German language and publicly supported the opening of the German School. At that time, 25 children were taught in three class groups, and a year later there were already 60.

1967

Move to Jakarta

Over the years, Indonesia attracted more and more German merchants and experts, most of whom resided with their families in Jakarta. This and the growing political and economical importance of the city encouraged the German Federal Foreign Office to move the school to the capital, where it acquired the former German embassy building in Menteng. The soon growing number of students led to the establishment of the board of parent’s, and eventually required temporarily renting a building in Bintaro to house several classes. Our school became known as the German International School (Deutsche Internationale Schule Jakarta / DIS Jakarta).

Relocation to BSD City

When it became clear that our school needed to expand to meet the growing demands, we decided to acquire land in BSD, Serpong, in 1996. When the construction of our new campus was finished two years later, we opened our school in its current location in South Tangerang. Just like our host country, our school shares tough moments in history, such as the political unrest in 1998, which forced many of our students and their families to move back to Germany. In the same year, our school was visited by Indonesia's president B.J. Habibie.

2001
until Today

Open Admission for Indonesian Students

Over time we acquired the permission from the Indonesian government to open our gates to Indonesian students as well. In 2001 we welcomed the first batch of our Integrasi programme, whom German chancellor Gerhard Schröder was able to meet during his visit in 2003. Our school was one of the first German schools abroad to start conducting a peer review as part of a quality offensive, starting in 2005, which made us officially become an Excellent German School Abroad in 2008, the same year our first students from Indonesia graduated. In 2017 we rebranded our school to Deutsche Schule Jakarta, the German School Jakarta.