Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) emphasized two new points in the 2025 high school graduation exam at the 2025 Admissions and Career Counseling Day to answer questions about choosing majors and university and college admissions, organized by the Ministry of Education and Training in coordination with Tuoi Tre Newspaper today, March 16.

Firstly, in the graduation exam, the learning process score (transcript) is 50% (while last year it was only 30%).

Second, this year is the first year of implementing the high school graduation exam according to the 2018 General Education Program (GEP) with the orientation of developing qualities and abilities. Candidates need to understand the knowledge and skills in the GEP program with many sets of textbooks, especially the connection to reality and practice. These can also be key and classified parts. "During the learning and reviewing process, if you see any content or knowledge that is related and applied to reality and practice, you need to prepare, reason, and pose situations in life, production reality,...", Mr. Ha said.

In addition, the content of the high school graduation exam is mainly for grade 12, but there may also be knowledge from grades 10 and 11. “There can be 2 ways to implement: type 1 is quite independent knowledge in grades 11 and 10; type 2 - which may be more prioritized - is knowledge from grade 12 but related to grades 11 and 10 to promote the ability to apply. Therefore, students focus on grade 12 knowledge, but also need to pay attention to the parts related to grades 11 and 10 to prepare well,” said Mr. Ha.

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Prof. Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training). Photo: Nam Tran

Associate Professor Dr. Nguyen Anh Dung, Deputy Director of the Department of Higher Education (Ministry of Education and Training) also shared important points to keep in mind when registering for university admission this year. The admission regulations are expected to have some adjustments. This year is the first year that students will take the high school graduation exam according to the new general education program, increasing the choices in exams for students.

Firstly, it is expected that early admission will be completely eliminated, only direct admission will be maintained for subjects according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training. Other subjects will participate in the general admission. The methods that candidates have prepared for early admission as before will not change, only the time will be adjusted. Thus, schools will organize admission and announce admission results in a unified round - the first round according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training.

“In other words, students have had 3 years to prepare their transcripts, have the results of the certificates, the results of the competency assessment tests, etc. All of these methods depend entirely on whether the training institutions use them or not. The regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training allow schools to use them, the only difference from previous years is the time of admission,” said Mr. Dung.

Second, the Ministry requires that if high school academic results are used, the results of the entire 12th grade must be used. This is to ensure that students are equipped with the necessary foundational knowledge to pursue university programs. If training institutions want to organize the examination of transcripts, they must use the results of the second semester of grade 12, while in previous years they could use the scores of 5 semesters. Therefore, candidates need to focus on achieving good results in the second semester of grade 12.

Third, the regulation will require training institutions to have a plan to convert equivalent admission scores between admission methods to ensure simplicity, convenience, fairness, and transparency for candidates in admission. This is mainly the difficult part that will lie with the university training institutions and the Ministry of Education and Training, candidates will not have any changes with this requirement.

“Candidates only need to choose the major or training program they are interested in and want to enter the schools. There will no longer be a quota division based on each method, schools will have a plan to convert equivalent admission scores to ensure that no matter which method they apply for, the highest results will always be given priority. Candidates do not need to choose a method or combination code, what they need to pay more attention to is preparing a good profile, having a high school graduation exam score, and a high capacity assessment test score,” said Mr. Dung.

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Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Anh Dung, Deputy Director of the Department of Higher Education (Ministry of Education and Training). Photo: Nam Tran

Fourth, this year, due to the nature of the high school graduation exam, students will be able to choose many subjects. “Therefore, we propose not to stipulate a maximum of 4 admission combinations if using high school graduation exam scores. The goal is that students can choose different high school graduation exams and the chance of being admitted to the majors remains the same,” said Mr. Dung.

According to Mr. Dung, training institutions can also build more admission combinations to create maximum conditions for candidates in all regions when taking different exams.

Fifth, for all priority points other than the priority points by region and subject of the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry limits the total score according to the scale to no more than 10%. This is the result of listening to opinions from candidates who, due to different conditions and reasons, cannot access exams that can create bonus points. "For example, not all high school graduation candidates nationwide have access to foreign language proficiency tests, while these students are not bad or excellent. We set limits so that training institutions can evaluate fairly," said Mr. Dung.

However, in the examination regulations, foreign language certificates are used to exempt foreign language exams. Higher education institutions are entitled to convert foreign language certificates into admission scores. This is to give autonomy to training institutions to exploit the advantages of candidates.

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