The public 10th grade race in Ho Chi Minh City reduces stress

Increasing enrollment rate

The Department of Education and Training (DET) of Ho Chi Minh City has announced the enrollment quota for grade 10 in the 2025-2026 school year of 115 public high schools. Accordingly, the total target for 10th grade admission this year in the city is 70,070 students, reaching a rate of 79% compared to the number of students expected to graduate from secondary school of about 88,000.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training said that the 10th grade quota for this year has been calculated by the department to suit each area, in order to reduce pressure on students. Schools in suburban and suburban areas, with a small number that need to control classes according to new rural standards, will be assigned targets according to needs. As for schools in densely populated areas, the quota is assigned higher.

Mr. Ho Tan Minh - Chief of Office of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City - said that the department is considering and submitting to the City People's Committee a plan to increase the quota for grade 10 admission to 3 high schools including Tran Dai Nghia High School for the Gifted, Nguyen Thi Dinh Sports and Physical Education and Training and Binh Tri Dong B High School (a newly established school in Binh Tan District).

According to Mr. Minh, adjusting this enrollment target is part of Ho Chi Minh City's overall plan to increase the rate of students entering public grade 10 by over 80%.

The race for top schools and specialized schools is still tense

This year, specialized classes in 4 high schools, Gia Dinh (Binh Thanh District), Mac Dinh Chi (District 6), Nguyen Thuong Hien (Tan Binh District), Nguyen Huu Huan (Thu Duc City) will stop enrolling. Thus, these schools only enroll regular classes and integrated classes. These are schools in the top 10 with high benchmark scores in 2024.

Admission quotas were announced, of the above 4 schools, Gia Dinh High School increased 105 quotas, Nguyen Thuong Hien High School increased 95 quotas. Meanwhile, Nguyen Huu Huan High School and Mac Dinh Chi High School reduced their targets by 85 and 75, respectively.

Statistics in the top 10 schools group last year showed that only Le Quy Don High School increased by 35 targets, and Trung Hoc Truc - University of Education increased by 30 targets. Tran Phu High School maintains its quota. The remaining schools have all reduced their quotas, of which Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School reduced 90 quotas, Phu Nhuan and Nguyen Huu Cau High School reduced 45 and 35 quotas respectively.

In the specialized schools block, Tran Dai Nghia High School for the Gifted and Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted, the total enrollment target this year is 1,260. Compared to last year, the enrollment target has only increased by 35 students (not including the target proposed to increase at Tran Dai Nghia High School for the Gifted).

Last year, the total enrollment target for specialized classes at 6 high schools was 1,995 students. Thus, compared to last year, the enrollment target for specialized classes decreased by 735 students; this year, Tran Dai Nghia High School for the Gifted will enroll nationwide. This leads to the race for places in specialized classes at these two schools predicting more tension.

The principal of a secondary school commented that the level of competition for this year's specialized class will still be very high. "This is reasonable because these are schools, specialized classes, with high competition rates. On the contrary, in normal classes, the pressure will decrease significantly when the enrollment rate this year increases sharply, the number of grade 9 students decreases significantly. This will help more students have the opportunity to be admitted to public high schools" - this person said.