The Minister of Education and Training (GDDT) has just issued Circular 06/2024 promulgating the Regulations on the National Science and Technology Research Competition for Secondary and High School Students, replacing the regulations issued since 2012.
Compared with the previous regulations, the new regulations have many changes and differences in purpose, requirements, and organizational processes.
Accordingly, in the new regulations, the purpose of the contest "Encouraging students to be creative in science, technology and engineering" has been abolished.
The content: "Encouraging universities, colleges, research institutions, organizations and individuals to support scientific and technical research activities of high school students" is also no longer in the 2024 regulations.
The new regulation adds the requirement: "The content of scientific and technical research of students must be practical, suitable for the psychology of the age group and the requirements for developing students' qualities and abilities according to the goals of the general education program."
At the same time, it is required that: "Organizing students to participate in scientific and technical research must ensure safety, seriousness, openness, transparency, and suitability with students' abilities, strengths, interests, and voluntary participation."
Particularly in the contest organization process section, the new regulations add the following provision: “Educational institutions organize the evaluation of student projects; select projects belonging to educational institutions and send them to the contestants for evaluation and selection according to the contestants' instructions.”
Having followed the competition for many years, teacher Le Van Vy - former Director of the Center for Continuing Education of Huong Son district, Ha Tinh - commented: "The basic new point of the 2024 Science and Technology Research Competition Regulations is to emphasize the purposes and requirements: "honesty", "voluntary" and "appropriate" for high school students.
“According to the new regulations, educational institutions are responsible for disseminating regulations, assigning instructors, and organizing the evaluation of competition projects. Therefore, it is impossible for professors, PhDs, and university lecturers to participate in guiding high school students in implementing projects as before.
The new regulations also emphasize suitability, appropriateness, and honesty, so in my opinion, there will no longer be projects that are "at the level of a doctorate" or "child prodigy" like before because if projects such as cancer drugs, pharmaceuticals, automation, etc. are implemented, they will exceed the guidance and evaluation capabilities of teachers and general schools, which means violating the competition regulations" - teacher Le Van Vy commented.
It is known that after the Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular 06/2024 promulgating the Regulations on the National Science and Technology Research Competition, the Departments of Education and Training issued documents directing the implementation of the competition.
Previously, Lao Dong Newspaper and many other press agencies had many articles reflecting on the shortcomings, negative signs, and fraud of the previous National Science and Technology Research Competition for high school students.
These are phenomena with signs of duplicate projects, copying, adults doing projects on behalf of students to compete; many projects are beyond the level of high school students and have no practical application.
Many online marketplaces have appeared on social networks, openly selling topics and projects to participate in the Science and Technology Research Competition. Many people have spoken out against it, requesting that the competition be canceled because of negative signs.
Following the above developments, the Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular 06/2024 promulgating the Regulations on the National Science and Technology Research Competition with many changes as above.
