Accompanying children in the 10th grade entrance exam

Rushing to review

The 10th grade public high school entrance exam in Hanoi this year takes place at the end of May - about 2 weeks earlier than in previous years.

With a score of about 6-7 points in the surveys, Doan Do Ngoc Lam - a 9th grade student at Lien Ha Secondary School (O Dien commune, Hanoi) expressed his stress before the important exam. Ngoc Lam said that the above score is a safe level for him to pass the first wish to Hong Thai High School. However, there were times when his Literature and English scores were below 6, making him unconfident.

At Trung Vuong Secondary School (Cua Nam ward, Hanoi), in addition to teaching according to the program, from the end of November last year, the school used "zero periods" to support students in reviewing 3 more subjects: Math, Literature, and Foreign Language.

After the mid-term 1 test ended, some students with scores of 5 - 6 in Math - a difficult level to enter public schools. Therefore, the school has implemented "zero periods" since November last year. Many enthusiastic students came very early, supporting them with the teacher" - Ms. Nguyen Thi Anh Thu - a school teacher, shared.

Proactively reduce pressure on children

According to data from the Hanoi Department of Education and Training, in the 2025-2026 school year, the whole city has about 147,000 secondary school graduates, an increase of more than 20,000 students compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, the enrollment target for 124 public and high-quality public high schools is 81,448 students, equivalent to about 55%.

This year, about 22,000 9th grade students have proactively not registered to take the 10th grade entrance exam. Ms. Minh Ha (Ba Dinh ward) has a child who is 1 of the 22,000 students who did not register to take the public 10th grade entrance exam. She said that this is a decision that the family discussed carefully.

My child's academic ability is not too outstanding, so I will consider my secondary school academic results to enroll in a private school near my house" - Ms. Ha said.

With early orientation, this summer, Ms. Ha's child's studies are not at all stressful, on the contrary, her child has more time for other orientations. Her family will register her child to take extra foreign language classes right from summer.

According to Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam - Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Psychological Educational Sciences, the biggest pressure that many students are facing does not come from studying, but from excessive expectations from families. He advises parents to change their thinking, accompany, and understand their children more instead of putting too much emphasis on achievements and scores.

In the long term, Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam believes that Hanoi needs to prioritize land to build schools by coordinating between the State and private units to bring the highest efficiency.

He suggested that land could be allocated to investors to both manage and reduce tuition fees for students.