ASSE International Student Exchange

The history of ASSE goes back to 1938 when the Swedish Ministry of Education instituted an exchange program for Swedish and German students. In the post World War II era, this was expanded to include Great Britain, France, Spain, and Switzerland and later the United States, where ASSE was established in 1976, by the Swedish Government, as the American Scandinavian Student Exchange. Soon Denmark, Norway and Finland elected to participate. Since then, the program has grown to include many additional countries such as Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Czech Republic, Estonia, Australia, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, and many more.

At present, ASSE works closely with the Canadian provincial ministries of education. It maintains 38 offices in 31 countries and accommodates more than 30,000 high school age students and host families annually in its programs in the participating countries.