Currently, nearly 100% of students nationwide have completed the junior high school program thanks to the widely implemented universal education policy.
In that context, a secondary school diploma is no longer actually a "asteritage certificate" but is just an administrative procedure condition for students to continue to grade 10 or learn a trade.
Continuing to organize the issuance of junior high school degrees is no longer in line with the policy of organizing local government at two levels (according to current Education Law, junior high school degrees issued by the Department of Education), does not bring practical value, but also creates additional procedures, costs and potential risks of institutionalization in education.
Last year, the Ministry of Education and Training also removed the good, good, and average classification above this high school graduation certificate.
Now the Ministry of Education and Training continues to propose assigning principals to confirm the completion of the junior high school program instead of granting a degree, which can be considered a step forward in the direction of decentralization, delegation of power, and increasing autonomy of educational institutions - something that the Vietnamese education sector has emphasized over the years.
This is also a common principle in the education system of many developed countries such as the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Finland, etc., where secondary school graduation certificates do not exist but only need to confirm the completion of the program to continue studying at a higher level or career conversion.
However, this change will not be effective without a mechanism to monitor and evaluate the quality of general education seriously and transparently.
When giving the principal the authority to confirm, it also means placing greater trust in the school's governance capacity and the individual role of the head of the educational institution.
If there is a lack of control, it can lead to a situation of "confirmation of acceptance", reducing the quality of traffic flow, especially in places with high entrance pressure to grade 10 or vocational training institutions.
From a positive perspective, dropping out of school, aiming to confirm the learning process through academic records and comprehensively evaluating it as a progressive educational mindset. This requires schools to organize real teaching, real learning, real scoring, instead of relying only on exams or a formal certificate.
In the long term, this is an opportunity for the Vietnamese education sector to escape the dependence on "diplom thinking", thereby expanding flexible and personalized forms of student assessment, suitable for their abilities and career orientation.
Confirming the replacement of degrees, if organized seriously and synchronously in the system, will contribute to saving resources, reducing pressure on students, parents and schools.
More importantly, it contributes to strengthening a message: true value does not lie in a degree, but in the ability, qualities and lifelong learning ability of each person.
