TPO - High schools said that a survey of registration for the 2025 high school graduation exam showed that students overwhelmingly chose social subjects, with some schools up to 90%.
TPO - High schools said that a survey of registration for the 2025 high school graduation exam showed that students overwhelmingly chose social subjects, with some schools up to 90%.
Mr. Nguyen Manh Quyen, Principal of Dai Cuong High School, Ung Hoa District (Hanoi), said that this school year, up to 90% of 12th grade students chose to take social subjects, while only about 10% of students with good or excellent academic performance took natural subjects.
Regarding the reason, the Principal of Dai Cuong High School said that the quality of the school's incoming students is not high, students have few opportunities to study foreign languages, so they mainly choose social subjects that are easy to learn and understand. However, there are still students with outstanding abilities who choose to take natural subjects and have very good exam results every year.
"When entering grade 10, the school organizes consultations and encourages students to carefully study the combinations, then discuss with parents and older students before making a choice. However, last year's 10th graders had 8 classes with 385 students, of which only 2 were natural science classes, the rest were social subjects, said teacher Nguyen Manh Quyen.
Ms. Nguyen Boi Quynh, Principal of Viet Duc High School, Hoan Kiem District (Hanoi), said that the school had students try to register for graduation exams to have a teaching plan. The results were not surprising when, in addition to Literature and Math, the subject that students chose the most was Foreign Language (accounting for 738/912 students). The next most chosen subjects were Physics, History, and Chemistry.
Subjects with low number of students choosing to take the graduation exam or no choice include: Biology 35/912 students; Computer Science 5 students and Information Technology no student choose.
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Students tend to choose social subjects for graduation exams, avoiding natural science subjects. |
According to Ms. Quynh, in general, students tend to choose social subjects for graduation exams, avoiding natural sciences because these subjects are difficult to learn. Instead, they choose Literature, Math, English and one more subject in the social group, which is easier to "score" than Physics and Chemistry, which are subjects that require thinking and basic knowledge from middle school to be easily accessible.
However, the principal of Viet Duc High School believes that in the long term, this will cause an imbalance in human resources for the country, so the high school's approach is to build scientific combinations, creating convenience for students when choosing subjects to form university entrance exam blocks.
“At Viet Duc School, when entering grade 10, the school carefully consults students and parents and encourages students to choose combinations of natural subjects. If after a period of study, they find it unsuitable, the school will create conditions for them to change. However, in recent years, after one year of study, almost no students have changed from natural subjects to social subjects,” said Ms. Quynh.
For many years, the percentage of students registering for the High School Graduation Exam has always been skewed towards social subjects. In 2024 alone, out of 1.07 million students registering for the High School Graduation Exam, there were 670,000 candidates, of which students registering for the social science exam dominated at 63%.
Urgent program evaluation
In a recent petition sent to Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son, the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges stated that there are differences in the Program and implementation of the 2018 General Education Program compared to the 2006 General Education Program.
That is, the number of subjects is greater, including some new subjects. The content of the subjects is more advanced, the volume is greater, and some knowledge is taken from the university program. Some of the selected subjects are not only new but also not familiar basic subjects for career guidance for students, nor are they to equip students with basic learning or vocational skills (Information Technology, Technology, Economic and Legal Education, Fine Arts, Music). These subjects are mainly "free" learning, with little practice or internship.
According to the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges, after 5 years of implementing the 2018 General Education Program, there were signs that students were overloaded with learning (both in terms of volume and difficulty).
Many of the subject combinations chosen by high schools may not be suitable for students’ abilities, strengths and career orientations. The immediate consequence is that high school science teachers, especially Biology and Chemistry teachers, do not have teaching hours and have to perform other tasks. For example, they switch to guiding educational activities and teaching local educational content.
The Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges recommends that the Ministry of Education and Training urgently evaluate the entire 2018 General Education Program at all three levels, especially in the high school segment, on all aspects: objectives, content (quantity, level and quality), overload level, career orientation level, flexibility, connectivity (horizontal and vertical), ability to stream after secondary school, etc. If serious shortcomings are discovered, decisions need to be made immediately to adjust.
The Ministry of Education and Training also needs to have drastic solutions to direct the Departments of Education and Training to carry out in-depth career guidance right from the end of junior high school and the beginning of high school because currently students have not received early career counseling from junior high school, leading to many difficulties and shortcomings in choosing elective subjects to study at high school. At the same time, flexibility in switching elective subjects must ensure a relative balance between natural science and social science subjects to ensure input human resources for basic science and natural science majors.
Request the Department of Education and Training to direct high schools to review the list of subject combinations to give students more opportunities to register for many university admission combinations. Allow students to change their subject choices according to their needs to serve the admission of university majors that are suitable to their abilities and strengths formed during their high school studies.
For example, adding Chemistry to the Physics-Informatics-Technology-Economics and Law combination so that students have more opportunities to register for university majors in the A00 subject combination, etc.).
"The Ministry of Education and Training needs to direct high schools not to arbitrarily arrange combinations of elective subjects contrary to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training and to develop combinations of elective subjects based on surveys of opinions of first-grade students, and at the same time arrange elective subjects according to students' needs as much as possible," according to the recommendation of the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges.
Source: https://tienphong.vn/do-xo-chon-mon-xa-hoi-kien-nghi-bo-gddt-ra-soat-lai-chuong-trinh-post1699642.tpo
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