Recently, in the draft regulations on secondary and high school admissions, the Ministry of Education and Training has withdrawn the proposal to draw lots to randomly select the third subject for the 10th grade entrance exam. 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 put the Departments of Education and Training in a situation where "there is no other way but to draw lots to choose the third subject".

The reason is, 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 exam subjects by the method of elimination... Therefore, this unit still has to find a way to avoid public opinion by drawing lots.

“In education, it is taboo to draw lots because this is ‘lucky as hell’. We cannot, because of our ‘incompetence’ in managing teaching and learning at the secondary level, fear that if there are no exams, students will not study, but put teachers, students and parents in a situation of luck, 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.

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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 form of specialized schools, while regular schools will decide on the form of recruitment based on the pressure of the number of students registering, more or less,” said Mr. Khang.

For example, schools with enrollment quotas equal to or smaller than the number of registered applicants only need to consider admission, without having to organize exams to save effort and money. Schools with enrollment quotas exceeding enrollment quotas can organize entrance exams or combine entrance exams with admission.

In the case of organizing entrance exams, the fixing 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 with 3 fixed subjects including Math, Literature and Foreign Language (mainly English).

The reason is that at high school level, English is one of the eight 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 a third subject as a 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 biased learning. Instead of drawing lots or choosing a fixed subject, students should choose the third exam subject based on 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 trouble for the locality organizing the exam because the Department of Education and Training has to design more questions for the subjects that candidates register for.

“On the other hand, 10th grade admission is conducted from top to bottom to 'finalize' the benchmark score, so it is difficult to evaluate and unfair if candidates choose to take exams in many different subjects,” said Mr. Khang.

The Ministry of Education and Training has abandoned the proposal to draw lots for the third subject for the 10th grade entrance exam . The Ministry of Education and Training has just solicited opinions on the draft Regulations on Secondary School and High School Admissions for the 2024-2025 school year. 60/63 provinces and cities have agreed to test 3 subjects: Math, Literature and a third subject for the 10th grade entrance exam. This plan is to reduce pressure and is suitable for reality.