2019 National High School Exam Removes "2 Common" Criteria: How to Calculate It Correctly?

According to information from the Ministry of Education and Training, the 2019 national high school exam will closely follow the task of assessing the general education level instead of simultaneously undertaking two goals: high school graduation and university and college admission as before.

The Ministry of Education and Training affirmed that this adjustment does not affect students, and at the same time creates more reasonableness and consistency for the exam.

However, there are opinions that in the current situation where many universities still consider admission based on the results of the national high school exam, all adjustments must be carefully considered. Along with that, minimizing negative factors will ensure that the final results are highly reliable.

Mr. Mai Van Trinh, Director of the Department of Quality Management, Ministry of Education and Training, said that the 2019 national high school exam was designed to assess the level of general education.

However, the exam will not be too easy and will include questions that are differentiating. The Ministry of Education and Training believes that this adjustment is quite reasonable in the current conditions and will not confuse universities when they have been given autonomy in enrollment.

If reliable enough, schools can choose the national high school exam results as the basis for admission depending on the level, otherwise, there are still other methods.

Mr. Mai Van Trinh analyzed: “The results of the national high school exam are the basis, the basis, and universities follow the spirit of autonomy, depending on the level, training needs and capacity to use these results at different levels. Therefore, when the results of the national high school exam are still good and reliable enough, universities will use them. Otherwise, schools will not use them anymore.”

That is the principle, but many education experts are still worried that if there is not enough reliability, universities will likely organize their own exams. Taking multiple exams will make candidates suffer and society will be more costly.

Not to mention that having a separate exam does not eliminate all negative aspects, and currently, very few universities have the capacity to organize their own standardized exams. In addition, if not foreseen, it is easy to lead to a situation where lower-ranking schools compete to consider transcripts for admission, making it difficult to control input quality. Therefore, public concern is understandable.

There is not too much pressure with this adjustment, but according to Associate Professor, Dr. Do Van Dung, Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education, if the exam remains stable, it will be better. With the change in the exam objectives, next year the school plans to expand the admission method and also plan for a separate exam in the future.

Mr. Do Van Dung said: “In my opinion, university admissions and exams in general should not change too much because it will make candidates suffer. As committed by the Ministry of Education and Training, we will keep the same exam format until 2020 when the new general education program is available. The problem now is that for such a common exam, we need to find a way to eliminate negativity.”

Sharing the same view, Dr. Nguyen Duc Nghia, former Vice President of Ho Chi Minh City National University, said that the most important thing in examinations is to ensure seriousness and objectivity to properly assess learners' abilities. Changing the goal of the exam is in line with practical needs because one exam cannot fulfill both the tasks of high school graduation and university admission at the same time.

However, in the long term, it is necessary to consider how to effectively consider high school graduation for students. Currently, the formula for calculating high school graduation results includes 50% of the average grade 12 score and 50% of the national high school exam results. According to Dr. Nguyen Duc Nghia, organizing a national exam to serve only 50% of the graduation results as it is now is wasteful and not really effective.

Dr. Nguyen Duc Nghia said: “Organizing an exam is very expensive but does not fully reflect the quality of students, so we should review the organization method. If we only consider high school graduation based on the results of the 12th grade report card, then clearly this exam is not necessary. But if we consider graduation based on the results of the national high school exam, then this exam must be organized in a way that the results are truly honest and objective.”

Along with changing the exam objectives, the Ministry of Education and Training also announced 6 groups of solutions to tighten the quality of the 2019 national high school exam process, minimizing negativity.

Universities and public opinion hope that the Ministry will do a good job in this step to ensure the highest objectivity of the exam. Teachers and students of grade 12 hope to soon access the reference set of questions so as not to have to rush to change their study and review directions because there is not much time left./.