Townshend International School is a co-educational English-medium residential school in South Bohemia, Czech Republic, near the borders of Germany and Austria. The school, named after the great Irish scholar and humanitarian, George Townshend (1876-1957), opened in September 1992. Townshend is a private, non-profit project with no religious affiliations but guided by Bahá’í principles. These principles are essential in planning the academic curriculum and the dormitory life; they are also the moral and ethical standards expected in both students and staff.

The school started its first academic year with 25 children in three rented rooms in a wing of the Hluboka elementary school. A dormitory was rented close-by for the foreign students. With all the difficulties that confront a multi-cultural project in a former East-Block setting, the school experienced a slow but steady growth renting more rooms as it went along.

In the fall of 1994 Townshend was accredited as a six-year gymnasium by the Czech Ministry of Education and enlisted among the private schools of the country.

In the summer of 2001, Townshend International School moved to their new campus on the hilltop overlooking the 13th century Schwarzenberg Castle and the city of Hluboka.

From 2009 school-year the school has prepared students to sit examinations offered by Cambridge International Examinations and also applied to be and was successfully registered as a Cambridge International Examinations Centre. It is licensed to offer the Cambridge International Primary Programme and secondary education leading to IGCSE and A level qualifications. The school is currently affiliated to COBIS.

Goals
Learning at Townshend International School is viewed as a process in which all branches of knowledge, human concerns, personal aspirations and spiritual values converge. Thus school life at Townshend expresses a holistic concern for human, intellectual, social, spiritual and physical development:

The many facets of the educational goals are realized and practiced in the various aspects of everyday life.