Proposal to separate the high school graduation exam from university admissions
In the 4th session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the morning of April 14, when giving opinions on the report on people's petitions in June, Mr. Nguyen Dac Vinh - Chairman of the Committee for Culture and Society proposed to study separating the graduation exam and university admission.
Before this proposal, Mr. Nguyen Van Luc - former teacher of Trinh Phong Secondary School, Dien Khanh, Khanh Hoa - said that the biggest advantage of the "2-in-1" exam is saving time and effort for people, reducing costs for society, and reducing exam pressure for students.
However, in addition to the advantages, according to Mr. Luc, after many years of implementation, the exam still exists, and negativity arises in the process of organization.
Taking the example of the case of 147 10-point students at Tuyen Quang Specialized High School, teacher Luc said that although it is just "a bad apple spoils the barrel", this is a typical example leading to public outrage.
Therefore, if the high school graduation exam is separated from university admission consideration, perhaps the situation at Tuyen Quang High School will not be repeated again" - Mr. Luc expressed his opinion.
Teacher Luc analyzed that if considering high school graduation recognition, what the public is concerned about is the situation of floating teaching and learning quality. However, in reality, the Ministry of Education and Training has Circular 22/2021/TT-BGDĐT, which clearly states the form of assessing students' training and learning, although this depends on the conscience and noble responsibility of the teacher.
The issue to be concerned about is whether teachers and schools implement Circular 22's guidelines correctly or not. If implemented correctly, this is a very reliable channel for evaluating teaching quality and is the basis for considering high school graduation recognition" - Mr. Luc said.
Regarding university admissions, Mr. Luc believes that autonomy should be granted to higher education institutions. At that time, depending on career orientation capacity, students will register to choose aspirations for a suitable university.
Innovating testing work is the core solution
Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh - Former Director of the Higher Education Department, Ministry of Education and Training, said that it is necessary to thoroughly recognize the causes of violations in the exam before considering changing the organizational model. According to him, there is currently not enough basis to affirm that the "2-in-1" exam model is the direct cause of negativity.
If only from a number of local cases, the proposal to separate the exam will be an incomplete approach" - Mr. Vinh said.
According to Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh, the core issue lies in the testing system and exam management, from policies, organizational processes, application of technology to the quality of the team doing testing work. He acknowledged that allowing negativity to occur shows that testing work has not yet had fundamental innovations, while many stages are still dependent on part-time forces, lack professionalism, have not effectively applied technology and data in management, and the independent supervision mechanism is not strong enough.
Mr. Vinh said that it is not possible to think about separating the exam every time a serious incident occurs. Separating the two exams is a major policy change, it is necessary to fully assess the impact on social costs, student pressure, regional equity, enrollment quality and the risk of university entrance exam preparation booming as before.
It is impossible to shift the entire system because of a non-core cause" - Mr. Vinh said.
Instead of thinking about separating the national exam, Mr. Vinh suggested that what needs to be done at this time is to fundamentally reform the exam and admission policies. Specifically, it is necessary to modernize testing technology; build a standardized question bank; manage data before announcing scores; independently supervise; and form a professional testing team.
Vietnam needs a comprehensive revolution in testing. Curing diseases must treat them thoroughly, it is impossible to continue curing the tip of the iceberg and then let the root cause become more and more serious" - Mr. Vinh frankly acknowledged.
