Many violations in the national excellent student exam

The conclusion of the inspection of a number of issues related to the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) by the Ministry of Education Inspectorate at the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year pointed out many violations in the organization of the national excellent student exams in 2015, 2016, and 2017, which were chaired and organized by this Department.

In the exam question making council, some members participated in creating the questions, and at the same time trained and coached the exam team. Meanwhile, many subjects only had very few proposed questions, such as Literature 2, Information Technology 3, French 4. The implementation of the question making process and exam security, according to the Ministry Inspectorate, was assessed as not being guaranteed, "potentially revealing secrets and lacking objectivity".

There were also many errors in the marking of the national excellent student exams in the years 2015 - 2017. The unified score sheet only had the unified scores of examiners 1 and 2, but not the scores of each of the above officials. There was no difference in scores between the two examiners in all the exams of the 5 subjects tested.

"The scores on the unified exam form are not equal to the scores entered into the computer; the minutes of entering the scores of the Chemistry theory exam into the computer (taken on January 5, 2017) do not have the confirmation signature of the exam board secretary," the inspection conclusion stated.

According to the National Excellent Student Exam Regulations, members of the Exam Board are not allowed to participate in the Re-examination Board. However, the 2017 Exam Re-examination Board has members who are examiners. Checking the 4 exams with changed scores after the re-examination, the Ministry Inspectorate did not see the record of opening and checking the exam bags as prescribed. The record of the marking team did not accurately reflect the actual increase in exam scores.

"The exam with code 0436xxxx went from no prize to third prize... before it was 11.5 points, after the re-examination it was 12.5 points. According to the re-examination report of the exam marking team, the reason was an added error, but checking the scores on the exam showed that it was not an added error, but the examiner who marked the re-examination added additional points for the component written in purple ink," the conclusion of the Ministry of Education Inspectorate wrote. The exam scores of other candidates were increased for the same reason and reality.

The conclusion of the Ministry of Education Inspectorate raised doubts about the objectivity and fairness of the national excellent student exam. On the morning of January 22, the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education) issued a written response.The Department admits thatlimitations in training and coaching the team, when some units invite teachers or bring students in the team to Hanoi to review before the exam. This causes doubts about the objectivity and fairness of the exam organization and exam results.

Over the years, especially since 2018, the Department of Quality Management has implemented many solutions to overcome limitations. Specifically, the Department mobilized young cadres trained abroad, many universities, research institutes, regions... to participate in the professional work of the exam. Inviting retired cadres, teachers, and lecturers to introduce proposed topics and participate in the Council for creating exam questions and grading exams is limited to the maximum.

One principle when establishing examination councils is not to assign teachers to the teams participating in the national examinations to select excellent students to participate in the councils. The proposed questions are sealed and sent by the person who created the questions; the Quality Management Department keeps them confidentially in sealed iron boxes and delivers them intact to the Examination Council in the quarantine area.

"The proposal does not focus on a few individuals. From the idea of ​​the proposal, the Examination Council changes at least 70% of the original exam to form the official and reserve exam questions for the exam. The exam questions only become official and reserve when they are independently developed and reviewed by members of the drafting team, and unanimously signed in the minutes submitted to the Council's leaders for approval," the document of the Department of Quality Management wrote.

The Department also said that the work of invigilation, marking, grading, and entering scores... was strictly implemented, in accordance with regulations, under the supervision of Inspectorate officers and the Ministry of Public Security (A83). In addition, the entire grading process of all subjects was recorded by cameras, and the data was stored for 12 months.

Receiving comments on the organization of the national excellent student exam, the Department of Quality Management said that it will continue to comprehensively review this exam to innovate the exam work. The training of national teams participating in regional and international Olympic competitions after 2020 will also be improved in the direction of increasing decentralization and promoting the autonomy of educational and training institutions.