It is easy for negative consequences to arise if localities are assigned to preside over the national high school exam.

After many years of working on the national high school exam, Associate Professor Do Van Dung, Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education, said that the high school graduation exam and university admission have tried many "tricks", from 3 in one, to the 2-in-1 national high school exam, to the organization of universities and then returning to the Department of Education. Each option has its own advantages and disadvantages..

In the short term, Mr. Dung said that we should not consider abolishing or keeping the national high school exam, because continuous changes will greatly affect candidates. It is not advisable to replace something new that has not yet taken shape or been repaired to perfection. However, the negatives in Ha Giang and Son La show that there are too many loopholes in the invigilation and grading of exams, causing injustice and reducing the reliability of the exam.

Regarding the work of supervising the exam, sealing and preserving the exam papers, according to Associate Professor Dung's observations over the past few years, some places have been quite careless and lax. The paper sealing the exam papers is very thick, and can be easily peeled off, the papers changed and then resealed without being detected.

In particular, localism and regionalism are quite strong in many provinces and cities, greatly affecting the seriousness and fairness of the exam. University lecturers are assigned to coordinate with the Department of Education, but key invigilators are arranged for local people. In some "special" exam rooms, there are even pre-arranged scenarios, creating favorable conditions for negativity that university officials cannot intervene in.

"It is necessary to return the responsibility of organizing the exam to universities, from presiding over the exam to marking the exam, to ensure fairness. Even local universities should not coordinate to organize the exam in that locality, but need to exchange information to minimize localism and favoritism among people from the same province," he suggested..

Sharing the same thought, Associate Professor Nguyen Hoi Nghia (former Vice President of Ho Chi Minh City National University) affirmed that assigning the national high school exam to local authorities to preside over is risky. Because the level, capacity and experience in national examination work at the grassroots level are not good and cannot be compared with universities.

The whole country has 63 provinces and cities, there will be several hundred officials in the Department of Education in charge of local exam results. They are influenced and pressured in many ways at the local level, from top to bottom (superiors), horizontally (friends, social relationships), so negativity can easily arise.

Not to mention the disease of chasing after achievements or for group interests, a number of officials also do not care to cheat in exams. "Honesty in exams is an ethical category, a big deal for many people, but for a few others it is just a small matter. Especially when the manifestation of non-compliance with the law is happening in life as a matter of course," Mr. Nghia expressed.

According to Mr. Nghia, after the 2018 exam, the Ministry of Education needs to review and comprehensively review the exam to gain comprehensive experience in the work of creating questions and invigilation. There are items that need to be adjusted, such as the work of creating questions, but there are items that need to be deleted and redone.

The immediate solution is to assign the task of administering the exams to universities or testing centers to ensure accuracy, objectivity and science. These facilities, at least, do not have to endure as much pressure as the local education sector.g.

Manh Tung