New points of the 2026 high school graduation exam
Informing about the expected organization of the 2026 High School Graduation Exam, Mr. Huynh Van Chuong, Director of the Department of Quality Management, Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) said that the 2026 High School Graduation Exam is expected to be held on June 11 and 12, 2026 - earlier than previous years.
The 2026 exam will remain stable as in 2025 and is expected to have some adjustments to ensure compliance with the 2-level local government management model, while continuing to apply information technology in the exam organization stages. The adjustments are not expected to affect candidates.
Specifically, amending regulations related to inspection and examination in the Exam to ensure compliance with the transfer of the education inspectorate at all levels to the Government Inspectorate and the Provincial Inspectorate. Adjust some regulations and exam organization processes to ensure more suitability and convenience for units in the context of rearranging provincial administrative units.
Reduce the time to receive review applications to announce review results earlier, while facilitating the admission of higher education and vocational education institutions. Adjust the review process to increase efficiency and quality.
Building a high school graduation exam schedule on a computer
Regarding the pilot roadmap for organizing the high school graduation exam on computers, Mr. Chuong said that the Ministry of Education and Training is focusing on implementing: Developing exam projects on computers; building a system of legal documents; training and improving the capacity of the testing team and developing national exam questions; building a bank of standardized and quantum exam questions; preparing infrastructure and software systems for the exam; testing, piloting and localities meeting exam conditions on computers; security, safety in all stages; communication.
It is expected that in April-May 2026, the exam will be tested on computers with a scale of about 100,000 candidates. This test is part of the process of building a bank of exam questions and serving the preparation for the exam on computers on a large scale. It is expected that in July 2026, the Ministry of Education and Training will submit to the Government for consideration and promulgation a Project on organizing high school graduation exams on computers.
It is expected that in October-December 2026, the Ministry of Education and Training will issue procedures and regulations, take the exam on computers, localities will arrange a number of pilot exam locations on computers in 2027 and prepare to invest in facilities.
In February-May 2027, test-telling of exam questions will be organized at locations expected to host the exam on computers and large-scale test-telling of exam questions will be organized according to the process of building a question bank.
In June 2027, organize a computer-based high school graduation exam at qualified schools and organize a paper high school graduation exam at other exam sites.
2025 is the first year that the High School Graduation Exam is organized according to the 2+2 plan, with 2 compulsory subjects: Literature and Mathematics and 2/9 elective subjects in accordance with the vocational orientation in high school. The exam is simultaneously conducted according to 2 regulations, 2 sets of exam questions for 2 general education programs 2006 and 2018.
The exam takes place in the context of changing the local government model from 3 levels to 2 levels, when organizing the exam, there are still 63 provinces and cities, but when organizing the exam, there are 34 provinces and cities after the merger.
The 2025 exam also applies stronger digital transformation to help save time, effort, and costs. 100% registered for the exam online (in previous years, only 12th graders registered online). For the first time, the exam questions were digitized and transferred via the medium of the Government's central committee.
In 2025, over 1.1 million candidates will register to take the High School Graduation Exam, an increase of nearly 100,000 candidates compared to 2024. The high school graduation rate in 2025 is 99.25% (in 2024, this rate is 90.40%).
