High School Grade 10 Admissions: Many schools request to reduce failing scores to 0

On June 27th, in an interview with Dan Tri newspaper, Mr. Pham Dang Khoa, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Dak Lak province, confirmed that the department had received a proposal from the leaders of several high schools organizing entrance exams for 10th grade, requesting a reduction in the minimum passing score to meet the assigned enrollment quota.

Mr. Khoa stated that the enrollment plan for 10th grade in public schools in Dak Lak for the 2024-2025 school year will be based on the current high school graduation exam regulations, in which the failing grade is 1 point or less. Therefore, the request from some schools to reduce the failing grade to 0 points is impossible and cannot be resolved.

Tuyển sinh lớp 10 THPT: Nhiều trường xin giảm điểm liệt về 0 - 1 — Students participating in the 10th grade entrance exam in Dak Lak (Photo: Uy Nguyen).

"Schools that hold entrance exams for 10th grade but do not meet their enrollment quotas will not be allowed to recruit more students. The Department will allow schools within the district to recruit additional students based on existing quotas, ensuring that the total enrollment quota for all districts remains unchanged," Mr. Khoa explained.

The Director of the Department of Education and Training further informed that the Department had advised the Provincial People's Committee to allow the enrollment of 45 students per class according to Circular 20 of the Ministry of Education and Training . If the province agrees, this would increase the number of students in grade 10 by approximately 1,000 without increasing the number of classes or staffing quotas.

Regarding the issue of schools failing to meet their enrollment quotas and potentially having a surplus of teachers due to insufficient teaching hours, the leaders of the Dak Lak Department of Education and Training affirmed that they will direct these teachers to teach across multiple schools to ensure they complete the required number of teaching hours. Inter-school teaching at the primary school level has been and is currently being implemented.

Responding to a question regarding the fact that many provinces and cities apply a failing grade of 0 in the entrance exam for 10th grade, while Dak Lak applies a failing grade of 1 or below, Mr. Khoa stated that for many years, Dak Lak has applied a failing grade according to the regulations of the high school graduation exam for admission to specialized high schools and specialized schools, and therefore continues to apply this failing grade.

As reported by Dan Tri newspaper , after many years of admitting students to public high schools through a selection process, in 2024, Dak Lak province organized an entrance exam for 9 public high schools and 3 specialized high schools.

However, the cut-off scores for these schools are very low, only 5-6 points, meaning that just three subjects (mathematics, literature, and foreign language) with scores above 1 point each are enough to secure a place in a public school. Remarkably, despite these extremely low cut-off scores, public schools that held entrance exams still fell short of their initial quotas by nearly 700 students.

Krong Ana High School only recruited 292 students out of 484 available slots; Phan Boi Chau High School recruited 261 students out of 440 available slots; Nguyen Binh Khiem High School recruited 362 students out of 480 available slots…

The reason schools failed to recruit enough students is that in Dak Lak province, 1,900 students received failing grades (1 point or less), with 1,799 of those failing grades being in mathematics alone.

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