Seven controversial issues about the national high school exam

The national high school exam has been in use since 2015 with two goals: high school graduation and university and college admission. Instead of having to take the exam multiple times, in multiple locations, candidates take the exam in clusters (2015-2016) or right at their locality (2017-2018) and it only lasts a maximum of three days.

The 2018 exam caused public outrage due to cheating scandals in Ha Giang and Son La. Many localities were also suspected of having unusually high scores, forcing the Ministry of Education and Training to set up working groups to verify.

On July 30, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam chaired a discussion with 26 experts and people interested in education to give their opinions on a number of issues, focusing on the national high school exam. The delegates evaluated and discussed many issues of the exam.i.

Should high school graduation exams be abolished?

According to the Ministry of Education, the national high school graduation rate in 2018 reached 97.57% (out of a total of more than 879,700 candidates taking the exam to get graduation recognition results). Of which, high school education reached 98.36%, continuing education reached 88.37%.

With the national high school exam only being used to eliminate more than 2% of students who do not meet graduation requirements, there are opinions that the graduation exam should be abolished and only a national exam should be organized for university admission.

This opinion has met with opposition because although the national high school exam scores are much lower than the graduation rate, this is still the basis for assessing the quality of teaching and learning. With the current situation of achievement disease and localism, students, even if they do not try hard to study, still have good scores and transcripts to graduate.On the other hand, according to the provisions of the Law on Education (Article 31), students must take the high school exam to be eligible for a graduation certificate.

Report at the monthly Government meeting7, Minister Phung Xuan Nha said that when developing the exam plan, the issue of eliminating the high school graduation exam was raised. However, this cannot be implemented because it is against the Education Law. Moreover, if the exam is eliminated, students will not study, the quality of education will decline, and students' learning results will not be internationally recognized.

Graduation criteria?

According to regulations, graduation scores include: national high school exam scores, priority and incentive scores (if any) and average score for the entire 12th grade year, add all together and divide by 2.National high school exam scores are only worth half of the graduation score. ThereforeDespite the low 2018 exam scores, the graduation rate was still over 97%.

Faced with this paradox, some people suggest that we should not maintain the high school graduation rate higher than the national exam score because it affects both the importance and meaning of the exam (you can know you passed before taking the exam), and also affects the orientation of the stream after middle school.

Contrary to the above viewpoint, some delegates believe that the national high school exam score alone cannot be the main criterion for graduation. Because learning is a process and during the learning process there are many exams and tests.

Reconciling the two opinions above, many experts believe thatThe results of the national high school exam can absolutely be the main basis for graduation, because if the exam is easy, the graduation rate will be high and vice versa. However, there still needs to be an appropriate weighting of the transcript score to both limit the situation of "achievement, local" transcript scores and limit the risk of "studying well but taking the exam poorly".

Who organizes the high school graduation exam?

Calling the current exam “2 in 1” is inaccurate, according to a delegate, leading to distortion. In fact, this is a high school graduation exam with the main goal of assessing standards, not ranking or recruiting.Therefore, it is necessary to tighten discipline so that localities can strictly implement it. Universities should not participate because it can easily lead to misunderstandings about university entrance exams. Universities can also therefore set too many requirements on the combination and differentiation of exam scores.

The violations in Ha Giang and Son La were in the exam marking stage, which was carried out locally.To limit theDue to the abuse of those directly involved in the exam marking process such as Mr. Vu Trong Luong (Ha Giang), many people proposed that the locality should not be assigned to preside over the exam marking process, but the Ministry should take the lead to ensure objectivity and fairness.

Other experts suggested that the Ministry of Education should not and cannot take on too much responsibility, and that it is reasonable to let localities take the lead. To be effective, universities must strengthen their supervision responsibilities; the exam marking process should be centralized at the Ministry, at least for multiple-choice tests..

It is impossible to organize a national university entrance exam because it is contrary to the provisions of the Law on Higher Education (Article 34) as well as the orientation to promote university autonomy, many experts have commented. In fact, there is currently no regulation prohibiting universities from organizing entrance exams themselves or in association with each other, and many universities are still enrolling students without basing on the results of the national high school exam.

However, experts have pointed out that in reality, only a few universities are willing to organize their own entrance exams. The vast majority still rely on the Ministry of Education, wanting the national high school exam to serve their admission purposes.

At the regular Government meeting in July, Minister Phung Xuan Nha said that since the construction of the exam plan, universities have been considered to organize the admissions. However, although the Ministry has encouraged it, in reality, very few schools have been able to do so because it is costly in terms of resources and costs. Moreover, the widespread situation of exam preparation and extra teaching and learning is likely to reappear.

Is multiple choice testing the best option?

To be considered for high school graduation, high school candidates must take four exams, including three independent, compulsory exams: Math, Literature, Foreign Language, and one exam chosen by the candidate from two combined exams: Natural Sciences or Social Sciences. Candidates studying the High School Continuing Education program must take three exams, including two independent exams: Math, Literature, and one exam chosen from two combined exams.

Apart from the essay-based Literature test, the remaining 8 tests are all objective multiple-choice. Each candidate in an exam room has a separate test code, and their test results are graded by scanners and computer software. This test format has been a controversial topic for many years.

During the discussion, a delegate frankly expressed the opinion that multiple-choice tests should not be continued because they would limit students' thinking, make it difficult to properly assess their true level and ability, and contain many elements of luck.

Many other experts have the opposite view, saying thatDespite certain limitations, multiple choice testing is still the best way to limit negativity in exam proctoring and grading (reminding, copying from each other, strict/loose grading), which is the most dangerous disease today.

Who is responsible for the violations in the 2018 exam?

In the 2018 national high school exam, in Ha Giang, 114 candidates with more than 330 exam papers had a total announced score higher than the assessed score from 1 to 29.95. Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hoai andVu Trong Luong, Head and Deputy Head of the Examination Department of the Department of Education, were arrested for the crime of Abusing position and power while performing official duties.

In Son La, the working group discovered that 5 Department of Education officials had altered both essay and multiple-choice test scores. However, it is not yet clear how many multiple-choice tests were altered and how they were altered. The provincial police have initiated a case and prosecuted 5 suspects involved in the score alteration in Son La.

During the discussion with the Deputy Prime Minister, an expert criticized the violations stemming from the Ministry's regulations on national high school exams and university admissions, which still have loopholes.vulnerable to exploitation. The Ministry and directly the National Examination Steering Committee have shortcomings.

Other experts believe that the violations are the fault of the locality, because no matter how good the regulations are, they still depend on the person implementing them. Other opinions believe that the fault lies with both the Ministry and the locality, looking more broadly at the problem of degradation and negativity of officials.

Minister Phung Xuan Nha assessed the violations in Ha Giang and Son La as very serious. The Ministry has coordinated with the Ministry of Public Security to handle the case in the spirit of strictly punishing the violators.

“Here we make it clear that violations must be strictly handled, but we cannot deny the entire exam results and hastily propose to cancel this exam as some opinions have suggested. Regarding the violations that occurred in some localities, with my responsibility, I accept responsibility,” the Minister said.

According to Mr. Nha, the Ministry has seriously reviewed and found some shortcomings in the organization of the 2018 national high school exam such as: The exam questions are not really suitable for the requirements of the high school exam, there are questions with high difficulty. The multiple choice scoring software still has loopholes in security, which can be exploited to falsify exam results. The inspection and supervision work of the Ministry for localities has been strengthened, but there are still loopholes and not thorough.

How to improve the quality of the national high school exam?

With the shortcomings in the regulations, many people proposed to add information technology tools to minimize the possibility of intervention by technical tools, changing the status of the exam and exam results. Regulations from exam supervision, exam collection, and exam sealing must clearly define the responsibilities of local and university officials and teachers so that if there are violations, all will be held responsible and strictly handled.

The exam must reflect the correct threshold or standard to graduate. This threshold should be equivalent to the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Students must pass the high school graduation exam to be awarded a high school diploma. If they do not pass or have not passed, they will only be awarded a certificate of completion of the high school program. To enter university, students must have a high school diploma. This option ensures the seriousness of the exam without depending on the requirement of "nearly 100% graduation".".

The delegates agreed that after a number of years, universities will be given autonomy in terms of expertise, finance, organization, and training processes with elimination to ensure output quality and vocational training from junior high school. When the quality of study and national high school exams is guaranteed, high school graduates will only need to register for university. Only a few schools in need will organize separate exams and admissions like many advanced countries today.

On June 25-27, 2018, more than 900,000 candidates nationwide took the national high school exam. On July 11, the Ministry of Education announced the exam scores, and the public was surprised when Ha Giang and Son La had a sudden increase in the number of candidates with excellent scores, while the average scores of the two provinces were among the lowest in the country. In Lang Son, the group of independent candidates who were mobile police also had many good scores.

The Ministry of Education then set up 3 working groups to 3 localities to verify signs of irregularities in the exam scores. The result was that Ha Giang had 114 candidates with more than 330 exams whose total score increased from 1 to 29.95. Mr. Vu Trong Luong and Nguyen Thanh Hoai, Head and Deputy Head of the Examination Department of the Department of Education were arrested for the crime of Abusing position and power while performing official duties.

In Son La, the working group discovered that 5 Department of Education officials had altered scores for both essay and multiple-choice tests. However, it is not yet clear how many multiple-choice tests were altered and how they were altered. The provincial police have initiated a case and prosecuted 5 suspects for investigation of the crime of “Abusing power and position while performing official duties.”

In Lang Son, the Ministry of Education's working group has not seen any signs of irregularities, even though 8 essay-based Literature exams have had their scores lowered.