Nghe An: Candidates worried before the 10th grade entrance exam
(Baonghean.vn) - The reason is that the third exam subject was announced quite late and this is also the first year that candidates taking the exam for specialized schools in the province have to hesitate because of overlapping exam schedules.
Passive because of late announcement of the third exam subject
The fact that foreign language was chosen as the third subject in the 10th grade entrance exam for the 2016-2017 school year is not too surprising, because it has been applied continuously for the past 5 years. This could also be the "strategy" of the Department because currently, foreign language is one of the important subjects.
However, because the exam subjects are only announced one month before the official exam, students inevitably feel anxious and will definitely have to "sprint" in the next 30 days. Not to mention, during this time, candidates also have to focus on reviewing for the final exam.
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| Review time for 9th grade students at Vinh Tan Secondary School (Vinh City). |
At Vinh Tan Secondary School (Vinh City), this information also made the school's Board of Directors worried, because the academic performance of students in the school compared to the city's average is quite low. Particularly in Foreign Language, the number of students with good and excellent academic performance is not much.
Teacher Ngo Luc Quan - Principal of Vinh Tan Secondary School said: "Although the Department has its own reasons for deciding to announce the third exam subject in the last days of the school year, in reality, this makes students and teachers passive. Right at our school, from the beginning of the year, although we predicted that the Foreign Language exam could be the third optional exam subject, throughout the school year the school did not dare to neglect other subjects because students still had to take the final semester exam. Therefore, there is not much time to review in depth for the Foreign Language exam."
Looking back at the 9 months of the 2015-2016 school year, 9th graders are always in a state of “nervousness”. The main reason is that in the curriculum there are 13 subjects, but 9 basic subjects will be randomly selected for the semester exam. However, in order for students to study all subjects equally, the education departments will not announce the subjects for the assessment exam until the end of April. Therefore, students have to worry about reviewing the semester subjects as well as reviewing the subjects for the 10th grade entrance exam.
The same thing will also have a significant impact on candidates in other regions, especially candidates in communes in disadvantaged areas where they do not have many conditions to study and invest in Foreign Languages.
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| Foreign language class at Hung Dung Secondary School (Vinh City). |
Candidates "race" according to the exam schedule
An unprecedented event in the 10th grade entrance exam for the 2016-2017 school year in Nghe An this year is the overlapping exam schedule between Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted and Vinh University High School for the Gifted. According to the explanation of Mr. Nguyen Van Thuan - Principal of Vinh University High School for the Gifted: The school chose the exam date to coincide with the exam schedule of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted to avoid the "passive" situation like in previous admission seasons. Besides, it helps candidates to quickly determine the school to register, helping them reduce the pressure of exams.
However, this reality has also put candidates in a difficult position when choosing. Talking about this, teacher Ta Thi Thanh Lien - Head teacher of class 9A, Dang Thai Mai Secondary School, Vinh City said: Usually, students choose the school to register based on their academic performance, geographical conditions, and family. But the general mentality of students is that they still want to take the exam at two schools to have more opportunities to get into specialized schools.
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| Candidates participating in the 10th grade entrance exam for the 2015 - 2016 school year |
With the current schedule of entrance exams for grade 10 at specialized schools in Nghe An, there is a high possibility that many students will register for schools with higher chances of admission and more quotas, which means that many students with real ability will miss the opportunity to enter the school they want. This scenario is similar to the entrance exams to universities and if they cannot accurately determine their abilities, their chances of entering a top school will be difficult to achieve.
It is known that this is the first time in the country that exam schedules overlap between specialized schools in the same province. With this incident, the 2016 exam season may have many surprises!
One concern is that since the 2010-2011 school year, foreign languages have been identified as an important subject and Nghe An has focused on investment and innovation to improve quality. However, the facilities and teaching staff have not met the requirements. For example, the province encourages schools to pilot the 10-year English program, but currently only 83/408 schools in 12 districts, cities, and towns have implemented it at the secondary level. In addition, only 122/1,399 secondary school teachers have met the B2 standard as prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training. The quality of secondary school is low, leading to the quality of high school is also not guaranteed. Even in the recent national high school exam in the 2014-2015 school year, the whole province had more than 30,000 candidates taking the exam. However, the percentage of candidates with an average foreign language score of 5 points or higher was only more than 11%. In addition, among more than 1,000 candidates who failed the graduation exam, more than half failed due to dead points in the Foreign Language subject. |
My Ha