The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has just announced a draft regulation on university admissions with many important new points. Notably, the MOET expects that the admission scores and passing scores of the methods and subject combinations used for admission must be converted to a common scale,...
Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Thu Thuy - Director of the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Training - said that in recent years, most training institutions have allocated separate quotas for each admission method, even for each admission subject group, from which they apply admission criteria to calculate the candidates' scores and determine the admission scores from high to low until the quota for each method and admission subject group is exhausted. This helps schools to use early admission to proactively complete their enrollment plans.
However, there is hardly any scientific or practical basis for allocating quotas between admission methods or combinations of a training program, leading to problems such as unreasonable differences in admission scores between admission methods and subject combinations, while pushing the admission score based on high school graduation exam scores very high because there are not many quotas left for this method, especially in "hot" majors and schools. This causes unfair opportunities for candidates who do not have access to many admission methods.
"Therefore, this draft amendment to the regulations basically stipulates the unified application of equivalent conversion of the admission methods and subject groups to a common, unified scale for each training program, major, and group of majors, on that basis, determining the admission score from high to low for all the quotas of the training program, major, and group of majors, except for the case of direct admission and early admission of candidates with outstanding abilities and achievements.
The draft also stipulates that the conversion method must ensure that all candidates have the opportunity to achieve the maximum score on the general scale and that no candidate has a score exceeding this maximum score. Accordingly, training institutions will have to study and re-regulate the addition of points for foreign language certificates and other priority points, thereby limiting abuse and causing unfairness among candidates with different investment conditions for studying.
At that time, all candidates applying for a training program will be considered fairly based on a common score scale and a common admission standard score. The chance of admission for candidates with real ability will increase and the quality of input from schools will also increase," Ms. Thuy analyzed.
On the side of higher education institutions, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duc, Chairman of the University Council - University of Technology, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, said that the conversion to a 3-subject graduation exam admission score scale is forced and unfounded because the admission score of each method depends on the difficulty of the exam and the enrollment quota of each method.
"The conversion can only be done fairly when there is similarity or equivalence of the exam matrix. Only the floor score should be specified between the methods; it can be equivalent or proportional to each other by an uncertain coefficient (according to the difficulty and differentiation of candidates' level)" - Professor Duc said.
For example, he gave an example of the Hanoi National University's aptitude test, which is a difficult test. Up to now, no candidate has achieved a perfect score, and the number of candidates who have scored above 130/150 points can be "counted on the fingers". Moreover, in recent years, the high school exam has served the highest goal of graduating from high school. The level of differentiation is completely different and cannot be converted mechanically.
Sharing the same view, Dr. Vo Thanh Hai, Vice President of Duy Tan University, said: "The regulations want to establish a common conversion threshold. However, I am also confused about the formula to get this conversion threshold. This is something that needs to be discussed and evaluated based on the data."
