Choose your exam subjects carefully.

In 2025, for the first time, Technology and Informatics will become subjects in the high school graduation exam; and from 2026, the Hanoi University of Education's competency assessment exam will include Technology and Informatics as subjects… Schools have surveyed the needs of registered students and implemented teaching and review according to their preferences.

Lesson 12 — A classroom scene at Son La Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School. Photo: Nguyen Thu.

Tam Dao II High School (Tam Dao district, Vinh Phuc province) has 266 12th-grade students this year. According to the school's survey, 60% of the students registered for two elective subjects: History and Geography; the remaining 40% registered for Physics, Chemistry, and other subjects. Technology and Informatics, being the first subjects in this crucial exam, still have many concerns and uncertainties among students and their families, and they haven't yet made a choice.

Although the Ministry of Education and Training has released sample exam questions for these two subjects, given the unique characteristics of this school in a mountainous area, with a large concentration of children from ethnic minority groups, learning remains challenging for many students. Therefore, their choice to take traditional exams is understandable.

School representatives stated that from the beginning of the school year, the school organized surveys and review sessions based on the subject combinations chosen by the students. In addition to focusing on systematizing knowledge, schools also intensified training in exam-taking skills according to the new format. Teachers increased teaching closely following the structure and sample exam questions published by the Ministry of Education and Training so that students could become familiar with them and have appropriate review methods.

At Bui Thi Xuan High School (District 1, Ho Chi Minh City), after compiling statistics on the number of 12th-grade students registering for elective subjects in the high school graduation exam, the school compiled 24 subject combinations. Leading the list is the combination of two elective subjects, English and Physics, with 332 students, followed by Chemistry and Biology with 120 students. Next are combinations such as Physics and Chemistry; English and Chemistry; English and History; English and Economic and Legal Education… The remaining combinations, such as Geography and Technology; Informatics and Economic and Legal Education; Informatics and Geography…, each have only one student. This poses a challenge for the school in allocating teachers to review and closely monitor students.

This is also a challenge many schools are facing, as some subjects have very few, even fewer than 5, students registering. A solution being implemented by some schools in Ho Chi Minh City is to organize "flexible classes" for students. Specifically, students attend classes according to their normal timetable in the morning, while in the afternoon, they choose which subjects/exams they want to study and attend the corresponding class. Because they get to study subjects they enjoy and actively choose, students are more enthusiastic and absorb the material better. Despite difficulties such as a class having many students from different grades, the afternoon teacher potentially not being the same teacher who taught them in the morning and therefore not being able to closely monitor all students' learning abilities, and challenges in arranging classrooms and subject timetables, schools are generally trying to overcome these obstacles to ensure students' educational rights.

The high school graduation exam is always a crucial test aimed at evaluating the teaching and learning of each locality and school. Therefore, to prepare for the first exam under the 2018 General Education Program, the Departments of Education and Training have specific plans and directives from the beginning of the school year. For example, the Department of Education and Training of Hai Duong province announced that it will organize two rounds of quality assessment for 12th-grade students throughout the province after the end of the first and second semesters. The Department requested high schools to direct their subject groups to strengthen professional development activities, study the structure of the high school graduation exam with new question types, study sample high school graduation exam questions; and develop appropriate exam preparation materials to meet the requirements of the exam. At the same time, they should actively exchange and share review materials, learn from the experiences of other units in the province; and apply artificial intelligence (AI) technology in preparing review materials for students. Professional clusters are strengthening the organization of activities within their clusters to improve the quality of the high school graduation exam.

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