No university or college entrance exam but still have to pay fees!

Take but do not return

The Ministry of Education and Training has just issued guidelines on the cost of the high school exam and the collection of admission service fees for intermediate and college levels for regular teacher training groups and regular university levels in 2018. In particular, the service fee for admission to intermediate, college and regular university levels in 2018 using high school exam results will continue to be the same as in 2017 at 30,000 VND/preference (NV). Candidates must pay this amount when applying for the exam and registering for admission within the prescribed time (from April 1 to 20).

However, this fee payment takes place before the exam takes place, meaning that there will be a group of candidates who are not qualified to participate in the exam but still have to pay this amount without refund.

This was clearly seen in 2017 - the first year the Ministry implemented the pre-exam registration form. Accordingly, more than 100,000 candidates paid the registration fee but did not meet the threshold to ensure input quality and were not refunded even though they could not continue to participate in the exam.

Calculating the average number of employees according to statistics from the Ministry of Education and Training, each person registers 4 - 5 employees. Each employee must pay 30,000 VND, so the total amount of this fee is up to 12 - 15 billion VND.

According to statistics from a Department of Education and Training in the south, in 2017, this locality had over 6,500 candidates registering for admission out of a total of nearly 9,000 candidates registering for the exam. However, after the announcement of the exam results and the minimum score, about 30% of candidates were not eligible to participate in the admission based on the exam results (did not meet the minimum score), equivalent to nearly 2,000 people. On average, each candidate in this province registered from 6 to 7 NV, the amount of fees collected from candidates who did not participate in the local admission was at 360 - 420 million VND.

This is not a small amount of money and clearly shows the unreasonableness when candidates who do not take the entrance exam still have to pay the fee. If it is an entrance exam fee, it should not be collected from candidates who do not take the entrance exam. If it is an entrance exam fee, it should not be collected from candidates who do not take the entrance exam. Moreover, candidates who register for admission based on exam results have paid the fee, but when they do not have enough points to switch to considering their high school transcripts, they continue to pay the fee. So these candidates have to pay the entrance exam fee twice.

This incident was reported in the press last year but is still being implemented this year.

Early registration not effective?

Not only collecting fees, allowing candidates to register for admission to universities, colleges, and vocational schools right at the time of submitting their application is also questioned by some experts regarding its effectiveness and has many conflicting opinions.

Master Co Tan Anh Vu, Head of Admissions Department of Ho Chi Minh City University of Transport, said that early registration for admission as now is necessary from a technical point of view. Because this is the time when candidates have to choose subjects and exams. When determining the career, choosing the exam subjects will be more accurate. After the exam scores are available, candidates have the right to adjust their NV, which is reasonable.

However, Dr. Nguyen Duc Nghia, former Vice President of Ho Chi Minh City National University, said: “Early registration is intended to help candidates better orient their careers, but in reality, in 2017, up to 74% of candidates had to adjust their registered CVs. Registration in which up to 3/4 of candidates have to adjust their CVs is ineffective, although this has certain reference value for schools and a “draft” for candidates.”

Faced with the unreasonable collection of fees that are not refunded to candidates who do not meet the admission requirements, the head of the training department of a university in Ho Chi Minh City proposed that candidates should register for NV but not collect the money. At the time of NV adjustment, after knowing the exam results and the minimum score for receiving application documents from the schools, it is not too late to collect the fee. Because currently, candidates who adjust the NV for admission still have to pay additional fees at the registration points.