Why should we not abolish the compulsory English exam?

English is no longer on the list of two compulsory subjects, and students can choose for the high school graduation exam starting from 2025. But whether optional or compulsory, students still have to consider English as a compulsory subject to study well...

Vì sao chưa nên bỏ bắt buộc thi môn tiếng Anh?

English will no longer be a compulsory subject in the high school graduation exam from 2025.

In fact, whether to keep or remove the compulsory English test is a very important issue for the country's development, and needs to be carefully considered. Does keeping English mean losing national identity? But removing the English test can weaken a tool for integration. The decision to remove the compulsory English test is a step back to decades ago, when education was not linked to the goal of developing human resources.

But now our Party has identified one of the three strategic breakthroughs as developing human resources to serve the integration process, which we must continue to promote because there are still many limitations. Even now that English is popular, many Vietnamese businesses are afraid to go abroad because they do not know English. They sit and wait for foreign businesses to come, but they do not understand what they say. They still consider language barriers as one of the barriers that have not been overcome when doing business in Vietnam.

Whatever you say, removing the compulsory English test is a manifestation of taking English lightly. In the past, while the government did not have the conditions to invest much in teaching English, thanks to the basic measure of requiring English tests, the English level of Vietnamese people has increased. Now that it is removed, teachers do not need to teach well, and students do not need to try hard to study. Who can be sure that letting students study on their own will give the same results as before removing the English test?

The direct importance of English for integration and development is well known. Therefore, popularizing English is a top-level policy in many countries. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew considered the most important decision in his life to make English the main language of Singapore. In India, English is a compulsory subject in schools and the administrative language of the country. Korean students study at universities using English textbooks, and most universities in Thailand teach in English. Most Europeans can speak English in addition to their mother tongue. The Netherlands considers English a matter of national survival. In Asia, no country dares to take English lightly, and all countries that use English in schools are developed countries. Malaysia, after making the mistake of neglecting English due to nationalism, had to correct its mistakes because its children spoke broken English. Currently, the English proficiency of Vietnamese people is still inferior to that of Southeast Asian countries.

I think that at the present time, Vietnam should not only not abolish the compulsory English test but also have to take more drastic measures and invest heavily in training English teachers.

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