Ministry of Education announces 2019 national high school exam plan

The 2019 national high school exam method, as announced by the Ministry of Education and Training on December 4, will remain stable as in 2017 and 2018. Each province or city has an exam cluster chaired by the Department of Education, and participating universities coordinate in supervising the exam.

Except for Literature, Math, and Foreign Language, the two combined tests of Social Sciences (History - Geography - Civic Education) and Natural Sciences (Physics - Chemistry - Biology) are all multiple choice. The exam room has 24 candidates, each with a test code. The results of the national high school exam are used to consider high school graduation and are the basis for university admission.

"The test content is within the high school curriculum, mainly grade 12; ensuring the basic threshold for high school graduation and having appropriate differentiation for universities and vocational education institutions to use as a basis for enrollment," the announcement of the Ministry of Education clearly stated.

The Ministry will soon announce sample exam questions for teachers and students to organize teaching and review in preparation for the exam.

Local universities do not coordinate exam proctoring in their locality.

In order to prevent cheating as happened in the 2018 national high school exam, this year the Ministry of Education adjusted the organization process.

In the examination supervision work, the Ministry will mobilize cadres and lecturers from universities, academies, colleges and junior colleges of teacher training (collectively referred to as universities/colleges) to the Examination Councils of the provinces to coordinate the organization of the examination. The principle is that universities/colleges in any locality will not participate in coordinating the organization of the examination in that locality.

The Ministry has strict regulations on the arrangement of examination rooms, especially for independent candidates; detailed instructions on the techniques of sealing, storing, and preserving exam papers and exam questions to enhance security. The room containing the exam papers and exam papers will have 24/7 surveillance cameras and increase the responsibility of relevant people in preserving exam papers and exam questions at the Examination Site and Examination Council.

University presides over multiple choice test grading, surveillance cameras

Instead of letting local Departments of Education organize the multiple-choice test grading as every year, this year the Ministry directly directs the organization of multiple-choice test grading, assigns the universities to preside over it, and installs cameras to monitor the test grading room 24/7. The Ministry also revises, upgrades, and perfects the multiple-choice test grading software to enhance security and monitoring functions to prevent unauthorized interference.

Accordingly, the Ministry will encrypt the data generated during the processing of multiple-choice tests to avoid user intervention and ensure that during the test processing process, test processing staff cannot obtain information about the connection between the candidate's personal information and the content of the multiple-choice test answers. This is a form of electronic "stealing" of the candidate's multiple-choice test answer sheet.

Increase the rate of exam results in high school graduation

In 2019, the Ministry of Education and Training will increase the proportion of national high school exam scores in considering high school graduation recognition. It is expected that the results of this exam will account for 70% of the graduation recognition score, instead of 50% as last year.

Specifically, the graduation recognition score includes: 70% of the average score of the national high school exams used to consider high school graduation + 30% of the candidate's average score for the entire 12th grade year + priority and incentive points (if any).

The Ministry also increases the autonomy of higher education and vocational education institutions in university and college admissions. Specifically, schools proactively develop and announce admission plans to ensure the principle of autonomy. In addition to using the results of the national high school exam as a basis for admissions, schools can use other methods./.

The national high school exam has been held since 2015 with two goals: graduation and university admission. After the first two years of cluster exams, chaired by universities, since 2017, the exam has been assigned to the Departments of Education to chair, with universities only playing a coordinating role.

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 achieving excellent scores, while the average scores of the candidates in 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 set up 3 working groups to go to 3 localities to verify signs of irregularities in the exam scores. The results showed that Ha Giang had 114 candidates with more than 330 exams whose total scores were raised from 1 to 29.95. Two officials were arrested for the crime of “Abusing position and power while performing official duties”, according to Article 356 of the 2015 Penal Code.

In Son La, the task force discovered that five officials from the Department of Education had altered scores for both essay and multiple-choice tests. However, it is not yet clear how many multiple-choice tests were altered or how they were altered. The provincial police have initiated a criminal case.

In Hoa Binh, the police also initiated a case and arrested three officials involved in organizing the exam. In Lang Son, the Ministry of Education's working group has not found any signs of irregularities, although 8 essay-based Literature exams have had their scores lowered./.