Proposal to clearly define admission subjects and resolutely eliminate "strange" combinations

The Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges has just sent a document to the Minister of Education and Training proposing a number of solutions to ensure consistency between the new general education program and the organization of high school graduation exams and university admissions from 2025.

The Association found that the 2025 high school graduation exam plan includes 4 subjects. Of which, 2 subjects: Math and Literature are compulsory and 2 subjects are chosen by students from the following subjects: Foreign Language, History, Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Information Technology, Technology, Economic Education and Law. This selection method creates 36 subject combinations.

Therefore, the Association recommends that the State establish or permit the establishment of a number of independent Testing Centers operating under a non-profit mechanism to deploy public services in the field of educational measurement and assessment and focus on improving the high school graduation exam in the direction.

The Association also believes that, during the organization of the exam, the Ministry of Education and Training needs to have a direction for setting questions suitable for each group of students (high school, continuing education...) to ensure fairness, reliability, honesty, and correct assessment of students' abilities, as a basis for university and vocational education admissions.

At the same time, increase the time for taking the optional subject exams and find solutions to limit the possibility of "guessing" in the form of true or false questions so that universities can easily select candidates based on high school graduation exam results.

Candidates also need to choose additional elective subjects (even if they do not study elective subjects in the school's prescribed curriculum) to ensure that learners fully develop their self-study capacity and have more opportunities to be admitted to universities when ensuring input quality.

Regarding university admissions, the Association believes that with the new exam method, the combinations chosen for admission are also limited.

In addition, a series of universities will appear to organize their own entrance exams, often under the name of "capacity assessment" or "thinking assessment" to serve groups of schools and majors with fierce competition.

The admission method using international foreign language certificates also does not ensure a correct assessment of high school candidates' foreign language proficiency because the foreign language subjects in the new general education program have different output standards from the standards of international foreign language certificates currently recognized by many public universities for admission.

The method of admission by international language certificates also causes difficulties and costs for candidates and their parents because they have to take the exam many times and have to accept enrollment in many "training centers"... This also affects the quality and structure of human resources for the country's industrialization and modernization.

From the above analysis, the Association recommends that the Ministry of Education and Training eliminate admission methods that do not ensure input quality. At the same time, it is necessary to require schools to explain the selection of subject combinations and competency assessment tests of separate exams used for admission, ensuring basic competency input standards for successful study at university level. In particular, it is necessary to unify reasonable admission combinations and resolutely eliminate "strange" combinations.

The Ministry of Education and Training needs to clarify the concept of “early admission” or change the concept to suit the nature of the admission process because most of these candidates have not graduated from high school in the school year when they participate in the admission process. Clarifying this concept will avoid confusion for candidates, society and universities.

"The Ministry of Education and Training also needs to assess the suitability of separate exams, ensuring that they do not exceed the curriculum of high school students to minimize the widespread situation of extra classes and tutoring. At the same time, direct schools to build admission combinations that are suitable for the requirements of university entrance; only additional criteria can be set when necessary," the Association stated.

The Association also requested clarification of the scientific basis for universities and colleges to implement the regulations according to the draft admission regulations from 2025 on the content of early admission quotas as prescribed by training institutions but not exceeding 20% of the quota. Admission scores, admission methods, and subject combinations used for admission must be converted to a common scale, consistent with each training program, industry, and group of industries.

Khanh Huyen

Source: https://vtcnews.vn/kien-nghi-quy-dinh-ro-cac-mon-xet-tuyen-kien-quyet-loai-bo-to-hop-la-ar911423.html