University and College Admissions for Pedagogy: Preschool is 'in demand', Math, Literature... are quiet!

(Baonghean) - This year's admissions, while the exam scores and benchmark scores for many majors increased, the benchmark scores for traditional pedagogical majors such as Math, Physics, Chemistry, Literature, History, Geography, and Information Technology decreased. Many schools only accept the minimum score. Meanwhile, the preschool pedagogical major continues to attract candidates.

The appeal of preschool industry

In the rather gloomy general picture, preschool education is considered the "hottest" major today with a fairly high "competition" rate and candidates need to go through 2 rounds of exams to be admitted.

At Vinh University, out of about 4,000 applications, nearly 1,000 were for the Preschool Education program. However, the program's quota is only 110 candidates. With this number, it is not surprising that the Preschool Education program is one of the few programs with the highest standard score in the school, with 27 points (in which the aptitude test has a coefficient of 2 and the aptitude test score must be at least 5.5 points).

According to Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Hien - Head of the Education Department, there are many reasons why the number of candidates registering for preschool education has increased. First of all, it is due to the change in society's view of this level of education, considering it the first and necessary level of education. Next, from this change, candidates realize the influence of preschool education and believe that there are many job opportunities after graduation, preschool teachers are confident and can make a living from their profession. This change has caused the enrollment target for preschool education to increase rapidly in the past 2 years and is now double that of previous years.

Candidates complete admission procedures at Vinh University. Photo: My Ha

Preschool Education is also the "salvation" major of Nghe An Pedagogical College in the current difficult enrollment period when 450/660 of the school's quotas are for this "hot" major.

Previously, the school had nearly 500 applications for the aptitude test and now has more than 300 applications for admission. To facilitate the admission process, since the second round of admission, the school has expanded its admission opportunities by allowing candidates to take their aptitude test results from other universities to apply for admission to the school.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Luu Tien Hung - Principal of the school also expects: "Compared to other industries, the job opportunities for preschool education are quite easy when the non-public school system and private childcare groups are very developed. This is also the main reason why more candidates are applying for preschool education than before."

Fear of "disaster" in teacher training

This is something that has been talked about quite a lot in the 2017 university entrance exam, because while the benchmark scores for other majors have increased and increased dramatically, the benchmark scores for pedagogical majors are only equal to the floor score of the Ministry of Education and Training, or even very low. In particular, for the college system, the benchmark score is only about 3 points/subject on average to be able to pass the pedagogical major.

At Nghe An Pedagogical College, this year the school has 6 Pedagogical majors: Preschool Pedagogy, Primary Pedagogy, Mathematics Pedagogy, Biology Pedagogy, Literature Pedagogy and English Pedagogy. At the end of the first round of admission, although the admission score was only 10 points with 4 subject groups: Math - Literature - English, Math - Physics - English, Literature - History - Geography, Math - Chemistry - Biology, the admission results of the majors of Literature Pedagogy, Mathematics, Biology... were still very poor with a few candidates registering even though the quota for each major was only 10 - 15 candidates.

This situation also occurred in previous years when each year the majors of Mathematics, Literature, etc. could only recruit 3-5 candidates, making it difficult for the school to arrange jobs for the teaching staff. In 2016 alone, the enrollment rate was only 59.46% (993/1,670 targets).

In particular, the Geography Pedagogy Department has not been able to recruit students for 3 consecutive years. This reality is very different from 10-15 years ago. At that time, the quota for the school's pedagogical majors was not much and was often divided into specific localities. Therefore, to be admitted to the college system, there were years when the admission score was even higher than that of the university.

The quality of teacher training admissions has also declined at Vinh University, a teacher training school with more than 50 years of establishment and development. Specifically, if more than a decade ago, the standard score for teacher training admissions at Vinh University could be on par with the top universities in the country, now it has declined with the entrance score for most teacher training majors only equal to the floor score of 15.5 points (average of 5 points/subject).

It is worrying that although the scores have dropped very low, at the end of the first round of enrollment, only about 40% of the pedagogical majors have met their enrollment quotas, such as Mathematics Pedagogy, Literature Pedagogy, Primary Pedagogy, Preschool Pedagogy, English Pedagogy, etc.

The remaining majors, including many majors that have created the school's brand such as Physics Education, Chemistry Education, History Education, Geography Education, and Information Technology Education, all have to recruit additional students with "modest" scores equal to the minimum score...

The low entrance score for the education sector makes many people worried because this is a special training sector; students will become teachers in the future. However, no one can be sure that these teachers will meet the requirements and tasks.

Teacher Le Xuan Huong - Principal of Thanh Chuong 1 High School affirmed: The quality of education depends a lot on the teachers, the more dedicated teachers there are, the more talented teachers there are, the more good students there are... However, with the current quality of education, the education sector and parents have reason to worry.

In fact, the Ministry of Education and Training is struggling to reform education to bring new vitality. But the reform will become impossible because the implementers are not passionate, do not have real talent and the education sector cannot attract talented people.

Volunteer day of students of Nghe An Pedagogical College. Photo: My Ha

Speaking to the press, Prof. Dr. Dinh Quang Bao - former Principal of Hanoi National University of Education said that the above admission results are "a disaster for the Education and Training sector". Because, according to the experience of countries with developed education, teachers are the decisive factor in the quality of education of a country. The quality of teachers depends largely on the quality of input as well as the training and fostering process. To train a teacher with good capacity and qualities, the quality of input must be good.

“When we set the entrance score too low, certainly no training institution will be able to train quality teachers. 3 points/subject to pass the pedagogical major is unacceptable. As far as I know, there are pedagogical schools that do not have any candidates. If the entrance score is too low, we should not train teachers, especially when many of our teachers are unemployed. Continuing to train teachers with such low quality will only create more burdens for society,” affirmed Prof. Dr. Dinh Quang Bao.

Obviously, the low quality of input in the education sector is gradually painting a gray picture of unemployment among education graduates in the next few years. And the vicious cycle of low input, lack of interest from students, and unsatisfactory output quality will directly affect the quality of education for students in the future.

Perhaps, it is time for pedagogical schools in particular and the Education and Training sector in general to have solutions to improve the quality of input into the pedagogical sector; localities, departments and sectors need to have many preferential policies to make pedagogical sector an attractive sector, aiming to attract people with real capacity, qualifications and enthusiasm.

My Ha