Tightening the review of transcripts needs to solve the root of the problem
The draft Enrollment Regulations being consulted by the Ministry of Education and Training has many adjustments, including regulations on reviewing transcripts. The Ministry expects that the admission combination will use the average score of the general academic results of 06 semesters (10th, 11th, 12th grade) of the high school level of at least 3 subjects, in which it is mandatory to have Mathematics or Literature with a weighting point calculation not lower than 1/3 of the total score according to the 30-point scale. Candidates using this method must have a total score of three high school graduation exam subjects corresponding to the admission combination (or the exam score of Mathematics and Literature and another subject) reaching at least 16 according to the 30-point scale.
Explaining the threshold of 16/30 points, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Tien Thao - Director of the Higher Education Department, Ministry of Education and Training - said that this is the level that most candidates with a responsible learning attitude can achieve, and also ensures that the source of recruitment is sufficiently qualified for universities to enroll students.
However, from the perspective of experts, Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh - former Director of the Department of Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Training - believes that the threshold of 16/30 is not reasonable because the current exam questions have not been standardized and there may be different quality exam questions between years. Each exam season, there is controversy about the differentiation of exam questions and the difficulty level of the questions. Therefore, there is no basis to set a floor threshold, rigidly imposed before the exam takes place.
To solve the root of the problem, Mr. Vinh believes that the high school graduation exam questions need to be standardized by practical testing, through many rounds of testing to assess the difficulty, validity and reliability, and then choosing a score threshold of 16 or 17 points is more reasonable.
Along with that, the assessment and scoring of students in many high schools must be in accordance with standards and substance, avoiding negative phenomena that may occur such as the situation of "inflation" of transcripts, teachers forcing students to take extra classes to improve scores, beautifying records and transcripts...
Agreeing with this view, Ms. Le Hoai Viet - lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City Open University, member of the National Startup Advisory and Support Council in the South - said that this score threshold should only be used after the graduation exam score distribution of each year is available, as a technical benchmark to ensure the input level, instead of immediately including it in the regulations as a mandatory condition applied for every year and in all contexts.
When there is no score distribution, setting a fixed number easily leads to shrinking recruitment sources and forcing policies to be adjusted in the opposite direction" - Mr. Viet said.
Proposal to remove IELTS bonus points
The draft enrollment regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training also stipulates that bonus points in admission consideration include: Bonus points for candidates who won national excellent student awards, international Olympics (but not used for direct admission); bonus points for candidates with special achievements or talents; encouragement points for candidates with foreign language certificates or international certificates (if any), up to 3 points on a 30-point scale. The component points of each type of bonus point (admission consideration points, encouragement points) are up to 1.5 points on a 30-point scale.
Contributing opinions to this content, Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh frankly proposed that IELTS certificate scores should not be added, even if only 0.25 points.
Explaining this proposal, Mr. Vinh said that an exam is only transparent and fair when the opportunities of all candidates are equal. He likened adding IELTS certificate scores to "decreasing the floor", creating inequality between groups of candidates with different learning conditions.
In countries around the world, no country adds foreign language certificate scores like that. Not to mention, the addition is unfounded. We do not deny the value of learning foreign languages, IELTS certificates, but it should be done in a different way. For example, exempting university foreign language modules if candidates achieve IELTS at a certain level, or using them as an input threshold for English training majors. This is both in line with the spirit of autonomy of universities, the Ministry does not intervene too deeply in enrollment, in accordance with international practice and ensures the importance of English" - Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh suggested.
In addition, experts also believe that it is necessary to abolish the regulation of converting IELTS certificate scores to high school graduation exam scores because these are 2 exams of different natures.
IELTS certificates assess 4 skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, while high school graduation exam scores only have 2 skills of reading and writing. The conversion is completely unreasonable, lacking scientific basis" - If converting, it is necessary to have statistics from previous years and should only convert scores of reading and writing skills and the English graduation exam questions need to be standardized" - Mr. Vinh frankly said.
However, Mr. Vinh believes that an equally important factor is the stability of the policy, which will help schools have a basis for building a unified enrollment plan, because all changes related to enrollment directly affect students' long-term plans. Not to mention, just a small change will cause the entire enrollment system to adjust, causing costs and waste in many aspects.
For learners, changes and adjustments are unavoidable because last year was not complete, which will make them worried, however, just grasping basic knowledge, they can completely pass the exam smoothly," Mr. Vinh gave advice to candidates.
