Nghe An: The arduous 'race' to get into public 10th grade

"Tense" race among top schools

Two weeks before the 10th grade entrance exam for the 2021-2022 school year officially took place, the Department of Education and Training announced the admission rate to grade 10 of public high schools in the province.

Nguyen Nguyen, a 9th grade student at Hung Dung Secondary School (Vinh City), said: “I have good academic performance and have registered my first choice at Huynh Thuc Khang High School. However, after knowing that the competition rate to get into the school this year is nearly 2 to 1, I am quite worried because most of the students who registered for the school have good academic performance and their test scores will certainly be very high.”

Candidates taking the 10th grade entrance exam in 2020. Photo: Duc Anh

Not only Huynh Thuc Khang High School, the other two schools in Vinh city, Ha Huy Tap High School and Le Viet Thuat High School, are also the schools with the highest competition rates in the province with admission rates of 68 - 70%.

The low admission rate of these schools is not unexpected, because Vinh city is a locality with a very high percentage of 9th grade students, while the whole city only has 3 public high schools, besides 2 specialized schools: Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted and Vinh University High School for the Gifted. This makes the race to get into 10th grade in Vinh city always more tense than in other localities and the number of students passing into public schools is also not high.

Checking the records of candidates taking the 10th grade entrance exam at Bac Yen Thanh High School. Photo: MH

In Yen Thanh district, among the 6 public high schools in the area, Bac Yen Thanh High School is the school with the highest competition rate (70%), higher than Phan Dang Luu High School - which is considered one of the top schools in the province. With a large number of registered candidates of 841 but only 588 quotas, this year the school does not enroll second choice students but only prioritizes enrolling students who register for the school.

Mr. Nguyen Ba Thuy - Principal of Bac Yen Thanh High School said: "For many years, the number of applications to the school has been quite large, but this is the year with the largest number of applications. This is partly due to the school's wide enrollment area, but besides that, it also affirms the school's training quality. However, although the chance of being admitted is quite low, students still have many opportunities to be admitted to NV2 at some other public high schools near the area."

Dien Chau district is also an area with a large number of 9th grade students. Therefore, although there are 5 public high schools in the area, this year, the admission rate of candidates is still very limited. In particular, schools such as Nguyen Xuan On High School, Dien Chau 3 High School have an admission rate of only 67 - 71%, Dien Chau 4 High School and Dien Chau 5 High School, although "easier to breathe", this rate is only 83 - 84%.

“The school is very pleased that this year the number of candidates applying to the school is quite large and we hope that through this we will be able to recruit truly qualified students. In fact, through reviewing the candidates' applications, we found that there are quite a few students who have achieved district and provincial excellent student awards, and many students with quite good academic performance. With the current quality of candidates, the admission score will not be lower than last year...”. Last school year, Dien Chau 3 High School was also the school with the highest admission score in Dien Chau district with an admission score of 22.4.

Mr. Phan Trong Dong - Principal of Dien Chau 3 High School

There are not many opportunities to change wishes.

For the convenience of candidates in this year's 10th grade entrance exam, the Department of Education and Training has created conditions for candidates to change their first choice (NV1), second choice (NV2), and third choice (NV3) immediately after the schools announced the admission rate. Previously, each candidate was allowed to register for 3 choices, which was also considered a favorable condition for candidates in the process of registering for 10th grade.

Dien Chau 3 High School reviews the records of candidates taking the 10th grade entrance exam. Photo: MH

With the above “open” mechanism, in theory, candidates will have many opportunities to choose, but in reality, the choice of candidates is still very difficult because there are very few schools that allow candidates to register for NV2 and NV3. Explaining this, the Principal of Dien Chau 3 High School said: In recent years, the school's admission score has been quite high. Therefore, if the school takes 10% of candidates for NV2 and NV3, the admission score of these candidates will be very low, even lower than the score of candidates taking the entrance exam to the school. Therefore, we must prioritize the admission of candidates with higher results.

Prioritizing quality is also the reason why many schools do not recruit NV2 and NV3 candidates. The remaining schools (very few) also have their own reasons. Talking about the decision to recruit NV2, Mr. Le Khac Thuc - Principal of Tan Ky High School said: "Compared to other schools in the area, the quality of candidates at our school is quite high. However, in recent years, the recruitment source is small, so the competition rate is low, leading to a situation where there are candidates with very high scores but also candidates with very low admission scores, like last year it was 11 points. Therefore, if we recruit NV2, we will have the opportunity to select candidates with higher scores from other schools to improve the school's input quality."

On the other hand, schools do not enroll NV2 and NV3 students in order to ensure that they meet the school's enrollment quota, especially in schools where the number of candidates registering for the exam is not higher than the assigned enrollment quota.

Even this year, besides schools with very difficult admission rates, there are still schools with quite easy admission opportunities with admission rates above 90%.

These are schools such as Nghi Loc 2 High School with 387 quotas/409 candidates (95% rate), Nam Dan 2 High School (420/425, 99% rate), Thanh Chuong 1 High School (96% rate), Dang Thai Mai High School (98% rate), Anh Son 3 High School, Tan Ky 3 High School, Yen Thanh 2 High School (99% rate), Co Do High School (99.5% rate). With the number of candidates registering close to the enrollment quota, it is predicted that many schools will have to "sweep" to the last candidates and that is also difficult to ensure the quality of input. That, also cannot avoid the reality that there are candidates with only 2-3 points/subject who are admitted.

This year's 10th grade entrance exam will be held with 3 subjects: Math, Literature and Foreign Language. Photo: Duc Anh

So, with the numbers thatDepartment of Education and TrainingAccording to the admission rate to grade 10 this year of public high schools in the province, this year's exam still divided into two distinct regions between central schools, top schools and schools in the lower group. The race to enterGrade 10Therefore, it will be more difficult for localities with a large number of registered students but limited enrollment quotas. Many parents and candidates have affirmed that the entrance exam for public grade 10 is more "tough" than the entrance exam for universities.

The fact that many public schools have few candidates registered for the exam and are expected to have to recruit the last candidates will cause many non-public schools and vocational training centers to face many difficulties in recruiting students at the beginning of the school year. Meanwhile, the current trend of many families is to send their children to vocational training or work immediately after graduating from junior high school./.