State of International Preschools 2026
As of 2026-10-10. Aggregate figures compiled by IPC from the 2,030 public listings in the IPC preschool directory. All numbers are counts of listings, not of children or schools worldwide.
Headline numbers
| Measure | Value |
|---|
| Public listings | 2,030 |
| Countries with at least one listing | 79 |
| Cities with 5 or more public listings | 79 |
| Listings with curriculum labels | 1,726 (85.0%) |
| Listings marked IPC Verified | 4 |
Listings by country
Top 15 countries by number of public listings| Country | Public listings | Share | Cities |
|---|
| USA | 248 | 12.2% | 94 |
| Australia | 183 | 9.0% | 100 |
| Singapore | 170 | 8.4% | 13 |
| South Africa | 157 | 7.7% | 52 |
| Malaysia | 142 | 7.0% | 26 |
| United Arab Emirates | 114 | 5.6% | 16 |
| Nigeria | 102 | 5.0% | 26 |
| Philippines | 90 | 4.4% | 23 |
| Japan | 76 | 3.7% | 13 |
| Hong Kong | 74 | 3.6% | 25 |
| Vietnam | 70 | 3.4% | 23 |
| Kenya | 58 | 2.9% | 7 |
| Ghana | 57 | 2.8% | 15 |
| Netherlands | 53 | 2.6% | 17 |
| Qatar | 45 | 2.2% | 7 |
The full country-level table (aggregates only, 79 countries) is available as a CSV download.
Download the country CSV
Curriculum mix
Top 15 curriculum labels: listings mentioning each label, and share of the 1,726 listings that have labels| Label | Listings | Share of labelled listings |
|---|
| Play-based | 495 | 28.7% |
| Language Immersion | 411 | 23.8% |
| Montessori | 387 | 22.4% |
| Faith-based | 154 | 8.9% |
| Reggio Emilia | 132 | 7.6% |
| EYFS | 131 | 7.6% |
| British curriculum | 127 | 7.4% |
| Bilingual | 108 | 6.3% |
| IB PYP | 106 | 6.1% |
| International Baccalaureate | 61 | 3.5% |
| Early Childhood Education | 54 | 3.1% |
| Forest / Nature | 50 | 2.9% |
| Inquiry-based | 48 | 2.8% |
| Holistic Development | 40 | 2.3% |
| IGCSE | 39 | 2.3% |
A listing can carry several labels, so shares add up to more than 100%. Labels come from schools' own public information and are grouped with a fixed spelling map (for example Play Based and play based learning count as Play-based).
Languages and bilingual programmes
| Measure | Listings | Share |
|---|
| Listings that state their languages | 1,629 | 80.2% |
| Listings that state two or more languages | 890 | 54.6% of listings with languages |
| Listings with a bilingual, immersion or dual-language label | 503 | 24.8% |
Age ranges
Based on the 1,738 listings that state both a youngest and an oldest age.
Youngest age accepted| Youngest age | Listings | Share |
|---|
| Under 1 | 532 | 30.6% |
| 1 | 216 | 12.4% |
| 2 | 450 | 25.9% |
| 3 | 401 | 23.1% |
| 4 or older | 139 | 8.0% |
Oldest age served| Oldest age | Listings | Share |
|---|
| 5 or younger | 536 | 30.8% |
| 6 | 592 | 34.1% |
| 7 to 12 | 236 | 13.6% |
| 13 or older | 374 | 21.5% |
School types
| Type | Listings | Share |
|---|
| preschool | 1233 | 60.7% |
| daycare | 221 | 10.9% |
| primary | 194 | 9.6% |
| international | 192 | 9.5% |
| kindergarten | 190 | 9.4% |
IPC Verified
4 of the 2,030 public listings are marked IPC Verified. Listings in countries where IPC status is not shown are included in every other total but not in this count.
Methodology
Source: the public IPC preschool directory, read when this page was built on 2026-10-10. Countries are grouped by country code, so spellings such as USA and United States count as one country. Curriculum labels are normalised for display only; stored listings are unchanged. Limitations: coverage is uneven by country and city, fields such as ages, languages and labels are missing for some listings, and the directory is not a census of all preschools.
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