This is one of the new points in the high school graduation exam regulations issued by the Ministry of Education and Training, which stipulates that in the 2025 high school graduation exam, candidates are not allowed to bring Geography Atlases into the exam room.

In previous years, candidates were allowed to bring Atlases into the high school graduation exam room during the Geography exam (in the social science exam) and considered it a powerful support tool when taking the exam in this subject.

In 2024, among the items that candidates are allowed to bring into the high school graduation exam room is "Vietnam Geography Atlas compiled according to the 2006 General Education Program (without markings or writing any other content).

However, according to the regulations applied from this year's exam, candidates are not allowed to bring a Geography Atlas into the exam room.

Specifically, the new regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training stipulate that, to serve the exam process, candidates are allowed to bring into the exam room the following: Pens; rulers; pencils; erasers; squares; graphing rulers; drawing tools; handheld calculators without text editing functions and without memory cards. Prohibited from bringing into the exam room/waiting room: Carbon paper, erasers, alcoholic beverages; weapons and explosives, flammable substances; documents, communication equipment (receiving, broadcasting information, recording audio, video) or containing information to cheat during the exam process.

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In the 2025 high school graduation exam, candidates are not allowed to bring Geography Atlas into the exam room. Illustrative photo.

Explaining this new point, a leader of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) said that there are two basic reasons: First, unlike before when there was only the Atlas of the Vietnam Education Publishing House, now there are many types of Atlases, making it difficult to compile exam questions.

Second, the high school graduation exam regulations from 2025 have increased the score of high school learning process (report card) when considering graduation to 50%, many skills (including using Atlas) have been trained during the learning process.

However, for candidates who studied under the 2006 General Education Program but have not yet graduated, this year, the Ministry of Education and Training will still organize the development of a set of exam questions according to the 2006 General Education Program (similar to the exam questions in 2024 and previous years) for this group.

The organization of exams for candidates in this category will remain stable as in 2024 and they will still be able to use the Atlas when taking the Geography exam (in the social science combination exam).

In addition, a representative of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) also noted that candidates studying the 2018 General Education Program can only register for high school graduation exam subjects among the subjects they studied in grade 12.

Candidates with foreign language certificates that meet the requirements can still use them to be exempted from the exam, but they cannot be converted into 10 points in the graduation recognition consideration as before.

In addition, candidates will not be awarded vocational points as before. At the same time, the points for IT certificates, foreign languages, and vocational secondary certificates will be eliminated for candidates in continuing education. This is done to comply with the new general education program.

The high school graduation exam from 2025 has many new points compared to previous years:

Firstly, the exam is organized into 3 sessions, including: Literature and Math, one session each, plus one elective exam session including 2 of the following subjects: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Geography, Economic and Legal Education, Information Technology, Industrial Technology (Technology and Agriculture), Foreign Language. Candidates will be arranged according to the elective exam combination to optimize the exam room and exam score.

Second, the graduation recognition will use a combination of process assessment scores (report cards) and exam results at a ratio of 50-50. The average report card score of each year will be calculated by weight. Increasing the rate of using report card assessment scores from 30% to 50% helps to more closely assess the learners' capacity according to the 2018 General Education Program. Report card scores of grades 10 and 11 will also be used (with a smaller weight than grade 12) instead of only grade 12 as before, to promote teaching and learning as soon as students enter high school.

Third, from 2025, foreign language certificates will still be used for exam exemption but will not be converted into 10 points in graduation recognition as before; the graduation score calculation formula does not include foreign language points in this case. This method continues to encourage foreign language learning but aims for greater fairness in graduation. For example, previously, students with an IELTS 4.0 certificate were also converted into 10 points like students with an IELTS 8.5 score.

Fourth, eliminate the bonus points for vocational certificates for all candidates; eliminate the bonus points for IT certificates, foreign languages, and vocational secondary certificates for candidates in Continuing Education. This content is to be consistent with the 2018 General Education Program, and at the same time create equality because students graduating from both formal and continuing education systems are all awarded the same type of graduation certificate.

Fifth, from 2025, the high school exam will allow foreign candidates to use their Vietnamese language certificate to be exempted from the Literature exam in the recognition of high school graduation. This creates favorable conditions for considering graduation recognition for foreigners studying the general education program in Vietnam while still ensuring basic knowledge of Literature through studying this subject in class and taking the exam to obtain a Vietnamese language certificate.

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