Separate exams in university admissions: Beware of 'more harm than good'

Therefore, some teacher training schools organize their own exams for the above purpose; at the same time, they test and evaluate candidates on many skills, in accordance with the recruitment goals of teacher training institutions.

Recently, Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 announced that it will organize an exam.competency assessmentfor admission from 2025. This is the first year the school organizes its own entrance exam and uses the results for university admission.

Organizing separate entrance exams for admission is not a new story for schools in the Pedagogical sector, because in previous years, the competency assessment exams of Hanoi Pedagogical University and Ho Chi Minh City Pedagogical University were recognized by many schools and the results were used for admission to the regular system.

Even the 2024 competency assessment exam organized by Hanoi National University of Education has 9 universities recognizing and using the results for university admissions.

Currently, there are more than 10 units and universities nationwide that organize their own entrance exams. This is one of the autonomy rights of training institutions, because each school has its own specific field. From the perspective of training institutions, it is possible that due to the specific requirements of some highly competitive fields, a "measure" of assessment with higher reliability is needed, suitable for the requirements of the school.

Therefore, some schools decided to organize their own exams to recruit suitable candidates; among them, there are some pedagogical schools. Especially in recent years, the recruitment of Pedagogical majors has improved a lot, the admission standard is high compared to many other majors.

This shows that the level of competition in the Pedagogy industry is getting higher and higher. And highly competitive industries need to recruit students by their own examination method. However, there should not be too many separate entrance exams, otherwise it will fall into a situation where hundreds of flowers bloom, everyone does their own thing. Invisibly, "the benefits do not outweigh the harm".

There have been proposals for key pedagogical schools across the country to come together to agree on a single entrance exam. Teacher training institutions themselves also want to join forces and “join hands and contribute” to organize a common exam. However, for many objective and subjective reasons, the above proposal has not yet come true.

The Ministry of Education and Training has requested that schools, regardless of the method of admission, using the results of separate exams or based on high school graduation exam scores, need to evaluate and analyze the correlation between the methods, admission results, and learning, thereby drawing experience, coming up with appropriate methods, ensuring fairness for candidates and ensuring input quality.

Candidates do not necessarily have to take many exams, because each exam will focus on assessing the ability and learning results of high school. Therefore, candidates only need to take the High School Graduation Exam and a separate exam. If candidates wish to apply for highly competitive majors, they should choose to take 1 or 2 separate exams.