Eliminate vocational exam points to truly differentiate streams

Class time of students at Quang Trung Secondary School, Hung Nguyen District. Photo: My Ha

Vocational training is still a formality.

In fact, although there is no policy from the Ministry of Education and Training, many localities in the province have proactively abolished vocational training at the secondary level. In Hung Nguyen district, this school year, instead of all 9th ​​grade students having to study 70 vocational training periods like previous years, now they are exempted from vocational training.

Regarding this issue, teacher Tran Thi Bich Ngoc - Vice Principal of the school said: I think the district's decision to abolish vocational training at the secondary level is correct. Because for a long time, we have been teaching vocational training to students, but they mainly only study IT at school, taught directly by the school's teachers, so their career orientation is not clear. Meanwhile, if they want to learn other professions, the school has to rent a vocational training center of the district and students have to pay additional tuition, increasing the burden on parents.

According to the school leaders, because all schools do not organize vocational training for 9th grade students, final year students are not too worried about whether or not they will be added vocational points to the 10th grade entrance exam if they register for high schools in the district. However, students who want to register for high schools in the city are quite concerned because the policy of removing vocational points has not been unified yet.

Pham Thao Nguyen - Grade 9A student, Quang Trung Secondary School (Hung Nguyen) added: Because my school is located in the town area, close to Vinh city, there will be some students who want to register for high schools in the city. Therefore, we hope that if we quit the profession, we should quit all together to ensure fairness for all candidates when taking the entrance exam.

In Hoang Mai town, Mr. Nguyen Viet Loc - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Hoang Mai town also said: In previous years, the department still encouraged vocational schools, but through surveys, the number of students voluntarily registering for vocational training was not high. Therefore, this school year, all schools in the area did not organize vocational training for secondary school level...

In fact, in the past, even though students learned a trade, the main purpose of learning a trade was to get extra points for the 10th grade entrance exam. Therefore, students mainly studied to cope. Meanwhile, due to limited capacity and facilities, most schools only taught computer science. This was ineffective because in the official timetable, students had to study 2 computer science periods per week according to the prescribed curriculum.

Teaching IT to high school students at the Provincial Vocational Training Center. Photo: My Ha

Do not tamper with input results

According to the draft of the Regulations on Secondary and High School Admissions that the Ministry of Education and Training has just released, it is expected that the regulation on adding points for each type of subject entitled to the incentive regime will be removed. Changing the regulation on adding points in high school admissions will be one of the solutions to effectively implement the policy of "reducing" the number of exams of the Ministry of Education and Training.

Looking back at the 10th grade entrance exams in our province in the past, it can be seen that because there were quite a few extra points for the entrance exam, the number of candidates who were encouraged to get high scores was quite high, causing unfairness for students. For example, at Huynh Thuc Khang High School, in the 2017-2018 school year entrance exam, the valedictorian for grade 10 was not the candidate with the highest total score in Literature - Math - Foreign Language, but the candidate with the highest extra point (5 points).

Faced with this reality, when the draft on changing the regulations on bonus points was introduced, teacher Cao Thanh Bao - the school's principal quite agreed, because: "If there are many policies to encourage bonus points, it is inevitable that parents and students will run after exams. Among them, there are many competitions that only a few candidates can participate in, such as the online IOE competitions."

“We should not understand that vocational training at high school is mainly for the purpose of adding points, but this is an opportunity for students to experience future careers, to orient their career orientation. In addition, eliminating vocational points does not mean eliminating vocational training, but to make vocational training more practical, not chasing points, not chasing quantity...”.

Mr. Thai Huy Vinh - Deputy Director of Department of Education and Training

In his personal opinion, teacher Cao Thanh Bao also added: In fact, just 0.5 - 1 point has disrupted the results of the 10th grade entrance exam and affected the candidates' opportunities. Therefore, if there are incentive points, priority will only be given to certain cases such as candidates who passed the provincial excellent student exam, national excellent student exam, and children of families with preferential policies. In particular, removing the vocational bonus points is necessary and does not have much impact on the entrance results because the students' opportunities are equal because most of them are given 1.5 points.

The current concern is whether removing vocational points will "eliminate" vocational training in high school and when is the right time to do so. Up to this point, vocational training for 9th graders has been completed and it is expected that they will start taking exams in April. Believing that removing vocational points at this time would be a "waste", Mr. Pham Duc Quyen, Deputy Director of the Provincial Vocational Guidance and Training Center, said: "This year, we have organized vocational training for nearly 1,700 9th graders of 14 secondary schools in the city and their wish is to have their entrance exam points added to the 10th grade. At this time, this is a legitimate wish".

Reality also shows that when the policy of eliminating vocational points is implemented, the education sector also needs to review and re-evaluate the effectiveness of vocational training at the current high school level. In addition, there should also be alternative forms of career guidance encouragement, with the aim of effectively implementing the career guidance and streaming plan that our province is currently implementing.