The rate of excellent scores in Literature in Thai Nguyen is nearly 5 times higher than the whole country.

Statistics on the 2018 national high school exam scores show that Thai Nguyen province has 168 candidates with scores of 9 or higher in the essay Literature subject, accounting for 1.18% of the total number of candidates in the province with scores in this subject (14,216).

The percentage of candidates scoring 9 or higher in Literature in Thai Nguyen is much higher than that in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An... even though the number of candidates taking the exam is 2-5 times lower. Specifically, Hanoi has 606 candidates scoring 9 or higher, accounting for 0.78% of the total number of candidates in the city taking the exam in this subject. Ho Chi Minh City has 7 candidates, accounting for 0.009%. The numbers for Thanh Hoa and Nghe An are 23, equal to 0.06% and 123, accounting for 0.4% respectively.

Nationwide, there are 901,728 candidates taking the Literature exam, numberThe number of candidates scoring 9 or higher is 2,324, accounting for 0.25%, 4.7 times lower than the high scoring rate of Thai Nguyen (1.18%).Compared with candidates who scored 9 or higher in Literature nationwide, Thai Nguyen province has 168 students, accounting for 7.2%.

Thai Nguyen ranked 6th in the top 10 localities with the highest average Literature scores in the country, after Hau Giang, Ha Nam, Ha Tinh... However, the province had 3.4-28 times more candidates with Literature scores of 9 or higher than the top three localities in terms of average scores.

Compared to 2017, the number of candidates scoring 9 or higher in Literature in Thai Nguyen this year has increased dramatically, 7 times higher. Last year, the number of students in this category was 24, equal to 0.1% of the total number of candidates in the province.

"The locality has checked and found no abnormalities"

Director of the Department of Education and Training of Thai Nguyen province, Mr. Pham Viet Duc said.It is true that the number of candidates with high scores in Literature this year increased more than last year and is higher than the national average...Grading of Literature essays sometimes has emotional elements, many candidates get high scores possibly because teachers are "generous".

"This must be tested to know," Director Duc said, adding that he will wait for instructions from the Ministry of Education and implement them in a receptive spirit and handle them strictly.

Regarding the organization of the exam and grading, the Director of the Thai Nguyen Department of Education affirmed that everything was done according to the procedures and regulations. When reviewing the entire exam process as required by the Ministry of Education on July 20, the locality did not detect any irregularities.

"We only review the process, but the test papers cannot be touched or freely taken out for re-grading because the regulations require that the test bags must be sealed and the regulations must be followed," said Mr. Duc.

Assessing the quality of Literature learning of students in the province in 2018, the leaders of the Department of Education said that there was an improvement because the province had many solutions such as organizing conferences, professional activities... to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

In 2018, the whole country had more than 900,000 candidates taking the national high school exam. After the Ministry of Education announced the exam scores, the public was surprised when Ha Giang, Son La, and Hoa Binh had a sudden increase in the number of candidates achieving excellent scores, while all were in educationally disadvantaged areas. In Lang Son, the group of independent candidates who were mobile police officers had many good scores.

The Ministry of Education then set up four working groups to go to four localities to verify the signs of irregularities. The results showed that Ha Giang, Son La, and Hoa Binh all had signs of fraud, and the police initiated criminal proceedings and detained a number of officials. In Lang Son, the Ministry of Education's working group did not find any signs of irregularities, although some essay-based Literature exams had their scores lowered.