Notable changes

Notably, the competency assessment exam organized by universities themselves also has appropriate adjustments.

ADJUSTMENT OF EXAM STRUCTURE AND SUBJECTS

Held since 2018, the Ho Chi Minh City National University's competency assessment exam has attracted more than 100,000 candidates from 1,815 high schools to participate in the exam and nearly 100 educational institutions use it for enrollment. In preparation for 2025, Ho Chi Minh City National University has announced the orientation for organizing the exam with notable new points.

Dr. Quach Hoai Nam, Vice Principal of Nha Trang University, is concerned about the situation where candidates only focus on choosing social subjects for the competency assessment test.

According to Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chinh, Director of the Center for Testing and Training Quality Assessment (Ho Chi Minh City National University), from 2025, the competency assessment exam organized by this university will continue to be implemented in a stable development direction, based on the foundation of the previous stage. Specifically, the exam will continue to be implemented in the form of objective multiple-choice tests on paper, organized simultaneously in many localities to create favorable conditions for candidates to participate. At the same time, the exam will have adjustments in the exam structure to suit the changes of the 2018 General Education Program.

The adjustment compared to the current test focuses on the problem-solving section. Candidates will be given the option to do 3 out of 6 problem groups during the test, instead of having to do all the questions in this section as before.

Dr. NGUYEN QUOC CHINH , Director of the Center for Testing and Training Quality Assessment (Ho Chi Minh City National University)

In recent years, the structure of the competency assessment test has 3 parts. Part 1 uses language (400 points including 40 questions), assessing literary knowledge, vocabulary usage, reading comprehension, and analysis of Vietnamese and English writing; Part 2 has a maximum score of 300, including 10 general math questions, 10 logical thinking questions in the form of inference and determination of logical rules, 10 data analysis questions with a given data table; the problem solving part has a maximum of 500 points, which are questions related to natural and social science knowledge, each field of chemistry, physics, biology, geography, and history has 10 questions. With a maximum total score of 1,200, candidates need to solve all 120 multiple choice questions within 150 minutes.

However, according to the draft structure of the competency assessment test from 2025, although it still consists of 3 parts, part 3 will address the problem of structural change. Candidates will be selected to do questions in 3 out of 6 groups of fields including: physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography, economic education and law. Thus, compared to the structure of the competency assessment test up to now, the structure of the test from 2025 will have the appearance of a new group of fields related to economic and legal education - new content appearing in the 2018 General Education Program.

"The adjustment compared to the current exam focuses on the problem-solving part. Candidates will be able to choose to do 3 out of 6 problem groups during the test, instead of having to do all the questions of this part as before," Dr. Chinh further explained.

Candidates taking the 2023 Ho Chi Minh City National University's competency assessment exam

SHOULD CANDIDATES BE ALLOWED TO CHOOSE THE SUBJECTS TO TAKE?

Faced with the direction of Ho Chi Minh City National University on changing the structure of the competency assessment exam from 2025, representatives of some schools expressed concerns.

Sharing at the conference organized by Ho Chi Minh City National University on November 24, Dr. Quach Hoai Nam, Vice Principal of Nha Trang University, expressed his concern when the Ho Chi Minh City National University's competency assessment exam has a direction to allow candidates to choose subjects in the problem-solving section. This concern was analyzed by the Vice Principal from the current trend of choosing subjects to study and take exams by students.

Mr. Nam said: "We surveyed a high school, the school has 7 classes but only one class teaches physics. It is not certain that this physics class has students choosing chemistry or biology." From the trend of students choosing to focus on social sciences in recent years, Mr. Nam said that it will be difficult for universities to train in majors that require more rigorous background knowledge such as engineering and technology. "The number of students studying natural sciences is shrinking, which will be a challenge for schools recruiting students in engineering and technology majors," Mr. Nam worried.

Regarding this issue, Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chinh said that the point of the exam is to assess the most basic capacity of PhDs when studying at university. In solving the problem, Mr. Chinh said that the expert team will consider solutions to help PhDs pay more attention to the field of natural sciences, with an appropriate proportion between the fields. "Ho Chi Minh City National University will announce in more detail the number of questions in each field from math, English, physics... From there, schools can proactively use the results of the PhDs' exams to suit the characteristics of each industry and school. For example, based on the scale of each part, when recruiting PhDs in mechanical engineering technology, Nha Trang University can multiply the coefficient with the math and physics exam to select suitable students," Dr. Chinh shared.

Ho Chi Minh City University of Education has organized a specialized competency assessment exam for 2 years. At the end of 2024, the school will announce sample exam questions for the 2025 exam.

Dr. Nguyen Duc Nghia, former Vice President of Ho Chi Minh City National University, said that the goal of universities is to recruit enough students and recruit correctly. "The easiest way to recruit enough students is by high school transcripts, but the results of high school transcripts are not reliable. We have very comprehensive statistics showing the unreliability of these results," Dr. Nghia said, adding that universities need to rely on more reliable results, such as the high school graduation exam. But by 2025, in the context of the new program, Mr. Nghia said that the capacity assessment exams of universities will become even more important.

Are other separate exams changing?

Master Nguyen Ngoc Trung, Vice Principal of Ho Chi Minh City University of Education, said that the orientation of the specialized competency assessment exam organized by the school from 2025 will closely follow the 2018 General Education Program. The question bank will be inherited and newly developed, fully tested on students for screening.

According to Master Trung, the exam orientation will be concise, pressure-free, and held many times a year so that students have many opportunities to take the exam and determine their abilities. Students do not need to prepare anything other than studying well in the high school program, without exam preparation. The school plans to continue to maintain the stability of the subjects and aim to improve the quality of the exam according to the trend of assessing the ability to apply to solve problems in life. The school will announce the sample exam at the end of 2024.

Saigon University and Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City jointly organize computer-based entrance exams. From the question bank of the National Testing Center and Education Quality Assessment (Ministry of Education and Training), in 2023, both universities will organize exams consisting of 7 independent subjects: math, English, physics, chemistry, biology, history, and geography. Candidates will take the exam in the form of objective multiple-choice tests for each independent subject; math takes 90 minutes and the remaining subjects take 60 minutes.

Vietnam-Germany University has also organized its own exam using TestAs for admission purposes for many years. Dr. Ha Thuc Vien, Vice President of Vietnam-Germany University, said that this is a form of competency testing for international students who want to apply to study at a university in Germany. "Therefore, the university's TestAs exam in 2025 does not need to adjust the content of the exam's competency assessment. However, for other forms of admission, such as using high school graduation exam results or high school studies, the university has begun to adjust the method and subjects used for admission from 2023. That adjustment is a step in preparation for 2025 when the first class of students of the 2018 General Education Program will be admitted to university," said Dr. Vien.

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