Recently, in the draft regulations on secondary and high school admissions, the Ministry of Education and Training has withdrawn the proposal to draw lots to randomly select the third subject for grade 10. The third subject will not be fixed but must change every year, announced before March 31, in order to achieve the goal of comprehensive education, avoiding rote learning and biased learning. According to Mr. Nguyen Xuan Khang, Chairman of the Marie Curie School Board, although the phrase "drawing lots for the third subject" is no longer used, this move will still push the Departments of Education and Training into a situation where "there is no other way but to draw lots to select the third subject". The reason is that if the Department's leaders choose subjectively, many problems will arise such as concerns that parents and students will object or that students can guess the subject by the method of elimination... Therefore, this unit still has to find a way to avoid public opinion by drawing lots. "In education, things like drawing lots are taboo because this is 'lucky, unlucky'. We cannot be 'powerless' in managing teaching and learning at the secondary level, fearing that if there are no exams, students will not study, but instead put teachers, students and parents in a risky situation, causing tens of thousands of people to live in a state of insecurity. Education needs to be clear, transparent and stable for many years," said Mr. Khang.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Khang, Chairman of Marie Curie School Board (Photo: Thach Thao)

According to Mr. Khang, all students who have been recognized as graduating from junior high school have met the requirements for quality and capacity. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to take this exam to "comprehensively evaluate the basic education stage". "This exam must be aimed at the future, that is, towards high school level. Thus, specialized schools will recruit in the style of specialized schools, and regular schools will decide on the recruitment form based on the pressure of the number of registered students," said Mr. Khang. For example, for schools with an enrollment quota equal to or less than the number of registered students, they only need to consider admission, without having to organize an exam to save effort and money. For schools with a number of enrolled students exceeding the quota, they can organize an entrance exam or combine an entrance exam with an entrance exam. In the case of organizing an entrance exam, the fixation of the third exam subject should be unified nationwide and stable in the long term. According to Mr. Khang, the best solution is to organize exams in 3 fixed subjects including Math, Literature and Foreign Language (mainly English). The reason is that at high school level, English is one of 8 compulsory subjects for all students. On the other hand, Conclusion No. 91 of the Politburo requires gradually making English the second language in schools. "Therefore, choosing the third subject as Foreign Language is necessary," said Mr. Khang. There are also some opinions that fixing the third exam subject will not promote educational activities, especially comprehensive education, and will easily lead to rote learning and lopsided learning. Instead of drawing lots or choosing a fixed subject, students should choose the third exam subject according to their strengths to create a foundation of specific abilities for students to study at high school smoothly. Through that, students will have career orientation and stream earlier instead of focusing only on 3 years of high school. However, according to Mr. Khang, this option is not feasible and even causes problems for the locality organizing the exam because the Department of Education and Training has to design more questions in the subjects that candidates register for. "On the other hand, the 10th grade admission is conducted from top to bottom to 'finalize' the standard score, so it is very difficult to evaluate and unfair if candidates choose to take exams in many different subjects," said Mr. Khang.

Vietnamnet.vn

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