According to the plan of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training, this year there are about 147,000 secondary school graduates, but the target for public high schools is only about 88,000 students, equivalent to 60%.
Thus, nearly 60,000 students are forced to switch to other directions such as private schools or vocational education.
The same thing will happen in Ho Chi Minh City, with about 65,000 students having to choose other learning directions, including studying at private high schools, vocational secondary schools or continuing education systems in this year's 10th grade entrance exam.
This figure shows that the competition for a 10th grade place in the public system in major cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City is still very tense to this day.
At the same time, it shows that education infrastructure, specifically schools and classrooms, is an issue that has been mentioned for many years, but so far has not been able to meet or is still slow to meet compared to the urbanization rate of major cities.
Placed in the context of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, this story is even clearer. Population is increasing rapidly, new urban areas are continuously expanding, and the number of students is also increasing accordingly. However, educational infrastructure, especially public high schools, is not developing commensurately.
Taking Hanoi as an example, the Draft Capital Plan shows that from 2031 to 2045, Hanoi needs up to 91 high schools to meet learning needs.
Right at the present time, 33 areas have been identified as lacking schools. These figures show that the pressure is not new, but has accumulated for many years.
In that context, the policy of vocational guidance after secondary school, with about 40% of students not entering public high schools, is a correct and necessary direction.
But when vocational education infrastructure in many places is still not attractive enough, and private schools are too expensive, "streaming" will more or less lead to many concerns for parents and students.
To remove this bottleneck, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and localities need to accelerate planning and investment in the public high school system, prioritize land funds for education in new urban areas, and at the same time have special mechanisms to shorten school construction procedures.
In addition, flexible public models such as financially autonomous schools or public-private partnerships in education can be considered to rapidly increase the number of places to study in the short term to help reduce immediate pressure when building new schools takes a lot of time.
No less important is to actually do vocational guidance. Vocational education needs to be improved in quality, associated with business needs and specific job opportunities, so that students can choose with proactiveness instead of being pushed into a position where there is no other choice.
At the same time, there needs to be a policy to support tuition fees or a cost control mechanism for non-public systems, in order to reduce the financial burden for families with children who cannot get into public schools. Because if not, the gap in access to education will increasingly depend on economic conditions.
Clearly, the story of 10th grade enrollment in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City cannot only be solved by adjusting targets or changing exam methods. The core issue lies in developing synchronous education infrastructure with the pace of urbanization, from planning, investment to system organization.
And this issue needs to be done quickly, strongly, and more reasonably. So that the fact that students do not have the opportunity to study in public schools nationwide and early is no longer an upcoming issue.
