Questioning Minister Nguyen Kim Son: Delegates hope to soon end the 'horrifying exam' for grade 10

According to the program, this morning (June 20), the National Assembly continued to question the second group of issues in the field of education and training.

Minister Nguyen Kim Son answers questions on the morning of June 20 - Photo: GIA HAN

According to the program, this morning (June 20), the National Assembly continued to question the second group of issues in the field ofeducation and training.

Accordingly, the Minister of Education and Training will continue to answer questions raised by delegates in the late afternoon of June 19.

In particular, delegate Tran Thi Thu Hang ( Dak Nong ) stated that the Ministry's explanatory report assessed that the situation of disguised tutoring in many forms is still quite common, showing that there is still a gap between policy and practice. Parents of students consider classroom learning to be insufficient to meet exam requirements, and need to seek extra classes as an inevitable solution to improve learning outcomes.

She said that the two above-mentioned problems can be considered a supply-demand relationship, but the solutions proposed by the Ministry only focus on improving institutions and administrative management. However, the key issue to completely overcome this supply-demand relationship is to improve the quality of teaching and learning during regular school hours.

However, the report has not yet provided any specific solutions. What solutions would you like the Minister to provide to improve the quality of teaching and learning during regular school hours?

Delegate Nguyen Hoang Uyen (Long An) raised the issue that many school meals do not meet energy needs and do not control food sources well. Some food poisoning cases at schools have even caused many students to be hospitalized, seriously affecting the health of students and causing anxiety among parents.

From there, the delegates asked the Minister to evaluate the inspection and supervision work on the organization of school meals in the past time and what effective solutions are there to thoroughly solve the problem of food safety in schools.

Delegate Trang A Duong (Ha Giang) asked the Minister to provide some basic orientations to improve the quality of digital human resource training to meet the requirements of Vietnam's digital economy in the coming time.

According to the program, Minister Nguyen Kim Son will answer questions until 10:10 a.m. After that, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh will report to clarify related issues and directly answer questions from delegates.

No charge for teaching the second lesson to students

06/20/2025 09:42 GMT+7

Delegate Nguyen Thi Thu Dung (Thai Binh) raised the issue of extra teaching and learning. She reiterated the General Secretary’s request for two sessions per day and said that this is an opportunity for students to learn enough knowledge in class without having to take extra classes outside of class hours.

Responding to this question, Minister Nguyen Kim Son said he hopes this will be implemented from September. At that time, the content of the main lessons will be concentrated according to the correct duration, improving quality, ensuring compliance with the plan.

He said the second session will aim to improve the comprehensive development of learners, practice skills, develop physical fitness, guide students in self-study, group work, reading, and exchanging to develop their own skills.

The important thing emphasized by the minister is that these activities will follow the principle of not collecting tuition fees from students and parents, but this needs support from local authorities and budgets, and socialization in a reasonable way instead of using "nominal" contributions from parents.

He suggested that it is possible to mobilize athletes, cultural figures, and experts to come to schools to participate in second teaching sessions for students. However, this requires mechanisms and resources to implement step by step and in each locality.

The regulation prohibiting teachers from giving extra lessons to their students is inappropriate.

06/20/2025 09:38 GMT+7

Delegate To Thi Bich Chau (HCMC) argued that managing teaching and learning in schools according to Circular 29 is correct, but there is no basis for sanctions, causing difficulties in managing this matter. If teachers are prohibited from teaching and learning extra lessons with their students while this is a great and practical need, there should be sanctions to prevent teachers from oppressing students, the current sanctions are not sufficient.

"Currently, teachers are very afraid of parents posting things online, so managing and teaching in schools is very difficult," said Ms. Chau.

Dang Bich Ngoc (Hoa Binh) debated about extra teaching and learning, citing Circular 29 which stipulates that teachers who are teaching are not allowed to teach their own students as inappropriate. Because many teachers are very good at teaching students and parents want their children to take extra classes from these teachers. Voters are concerned, so families who want their children to take extra classes have to circumvent the law and change the rules. Therefore, it is important to control the curriculum and exams.

Regarding teaching 2 sessions/day, delegate Trinh Xuan An (Dong Nai) said that this is a humane policy, but it is very difficult to implement. In fact, private schools can do it because they earn money, and the 2-session-a-day program is included in the tuition fee.

Therefore, if we implement 2 sessions a day, where will we get the money to implement it? So there must be drastic solutions, especially regarding finance, socialization of education, and it cannot be done by the ministry alone, but the locality must participate, such as allocating funds in the medium-term public investment plan, facilities, etc.

"It would be very difficult to not charge a fee if we were to run the program twice a day," said Mr. An.

Proposal not to take financial autonomy as the main factor in considering university autonomy

06/20/2025 09:27 GMT+7

Delegate Nguyen Ngoc Son (Hai Duong) questioned that recently, many higher education institutions have been inspected to meet standards and granted autonomy, however, the quality of training has not met the requirements of high-quality human resources. The Minister said that the first are the breakthrough solutions in terms of institutional substance that the ministry will implement in the coming time?

In return, Minister Nguyen Kim Son said that creating institutional breakthroughs to develop universities must be done synchronously and comprehensively. Currently, a major task the Ministry of Education is doing is not only amending one Law on Higher Education but also amending all three laws to have a synchronous and unified perspective.

In particular, attention is paid to adjusting and amending the Law on Higher Education, systematically regulating the organization, education and operation of higher education institutions. The education sector believes that over the past 10 years, this law has created a legal basis for implementing university autonomy, bringing many results.

However, the new phase needs to bring university autonomy into depth, substance, and aim for quality goals. In particular, the law needs to be amended to strengthen the connection between the university education system, vocational education system, and general education system.

Within the university education system, there will be a content of finance for education. In which, an important point to ask for opinions from relevant parties is that the autonomy of universities will not be based on financial autonomy as the main factor, but will have support from the State and maximum mobilization from society in the true and complete sense.

In addition, the internal governance of the school, reviewing the responsibility mechanism of the head, the school council in terms of structure, composition, functions, and tasks of coordinating activities will also be discussed and adjusted for the best internal governance.

Ensure quality, strengthen management of groups of fields such as health sciences, law, pedagogy and strengthen state management of doctoral training. There will be stronger decentralization and delegation of authority; reduce 50% of administrative procedures when amending the law.

This will give more initiative to both educational institutions and the management department with less content but increased training efficiency.

Delegate Nguyen Tam Hung (Ba Ria - Vung Tau): The gap in education quality between advantaged and disadvantaged areas is currently very large, especially in access to teaching equipment, quality of teachers, student capacity and opportunities to access vocational education, university education... What is the ministry's responsibility in narrowing this gap, and what are the solutions to reduce the gap?

Mr. Son said this is an important concern in education, one of the goals set is to ensure equity in education. Recently, the National Assembly resolutions discussing tuition exemption and universal preschool education for 3-5 year olds all aim at this goal.

Especially for universalizing preschool education, it is also important to prepare Vietnamese for ethnic minority children to enter primary school best.

In addition, the Prime Minister recently signed and issued Decree 66 to replace Decree 116 on support policies for children of ethnic minorities, mountainous areas, islands... which includes more comprehensive policies, addressing many issues.

Along with that, currently implementing the direction of the General Secretary and Prime Minister, the ministry is also developing a project to build a system of boarding schools nationwide, regardless of ethnic minorities or Kinh people.

Prioritize the construction of a system of boarding schools for all communes in border areas (after arranging about 300 communes). This project will be completed in the third quarter of 2025 to submit to the Prime Minister for approval. The entire boarding school system will be completed within the year to be included in the national target program so that the budget can be allocated.

Proposal to have a National Assembly resolution to enhance the role of society and family in child management

06/20/2025 09:20 GMT+7

Delegate Truong Trong Nghia - Photo: GIA HAN

Using the right to debate, delegate Truong Trong Nghia (HCMC) said that education is the cause of cultivating people. Therefore, the state, society and family are each a tripod with an irreplaceable role. For example, violence is the impotence of goodness, while love and kindness depend heavily on society and family.

Mr. Nghia cited some developed countries that ban the use of smartphones and social networks. Therefore, the delegate suggested that the National Assembly should have a resolution to not only enhance the role of the state but also promote the role of society and family. For example, using smart TVs can control children's viewing of programs, but the delegate questioned how many parents have used this function to manage their children.

Scene of the questioning session - Photo: GIA HAN

Regarding this point of view, Minister Son agreed with the need for coordination between family, school and society and said that this is inseparable.

Meanwhile, delegate Nguyen Van Than (Thai Binh) expressed dissatisfaction with the answers regarding extra teaching, extra learning and meal support for children.

Expressing the opinion that extra classes should not be banned or forced on students, because good teachers and students who want to learn extra classes and overcome ignorance should be taught and taking money is an agreement between both parties.

To overcome the situation of teachers forcing students (homeroom teachers and subject teachers), delegates proposed that teachers who teach directly be allowed to teach but not to take money. "Assuming that they take money, if you don't know, then don't care about it. I think that's for the sake of openness, but we still have to check. If you send your good student around the world, no matter how much money you spend, you still study" - Mr. Than said.

Delegate Nguyen Van Than - Photo: GIA HAN

Regarding meals, it is also difficult to check, only random checks. The initiative is that the Association is willing to sign a three-party cooperation to have a menu to ensure meals for the children, providing food.

The Minister said that Circular 29, which was published online, does not prohibit extra teaching and learning, but only prohibits a few things. Students want to find good teachers, want to teach and want to learn, according to the regulations, it is not prohibited.

The circular only notes that teachers are not allowed to teach extra classes to their own students to ensure competitiveness, because students have already studied in class and do not take each other to the center to study anymore. This is through education management, not a regulation prohibiting extra teaching and learning.

243 higher education institutions will be reorganized

06/20/2025 09:18 GMT+7

Pointing out the fact that the university education system is fragmented, reducing the efficiency of resource use and lacking operational unity, delegate Nguyen Thi Yen (Ba Ria - Vung Tau) asked about solutions to improve the efficiency and quality of the education system?

Regarding this issue, Minister Son said that with 243 higher education institutions, there is currently a dispersion of territories, management and operation points, and scale. Some key universities such as national universities have good scale and infrastructure, but some schools only have a few buildings, rented lecture halls, fragmented and dispersed. Some schools can only recruit a few students, so some schools have to stop operating.

Therefore, in the coming time, we will focus on planning and rearranging universities. Including arranging, investing and orienting the development of national universities, regional universities, pedagogical universities, technology and engineering sectors. This is to ensure a compact, effective and efficient operation.

"It is natural to reduce the number of 243 schools, but the reduction needs to be arranged to make it reasonable. The Party Central Committee decided that schools under the management of the Fatherland Front will be transferred to the Ministry of Education and Training, aiming at a common focal point, improving efficiency, effectiveness and efficiency" - the Minister stated.

Delegates hope to soon end the 'horrifying exam' for grade 10

06/20/2025 09:07 GMT+7

Delegate Nguyen Cong Long (Dong Nai) raised the debate on improving the quality of general education. He cited the Minister saying that the current general education curriculum is too light compared to the world, but he said that many policies in education need to be reconsidered, such as student streaming.

"The streaming policy aims for 40% of junior high school graduates to go to vocational school. Because of this rate, many students find it difficult to ensure their dream of going to high school because they cannot guarantee a school due to the streaming policy," said Mr. Long.

Delegate Nguyen Cong Long - Photo: GIA HAN

In the digital age, with the need to improve the quality of human resources, Mr. Long emphasized that we cannot have high-quality human resources based on the foundation of students with a junior high school education level. He emphasized that the current streaming policy is ineffective. For many years, parents have wanted their children to finish high school, so the high school foundation must be used to stream, not the current streaming.

"The desire to end the terrifying exam of millions of students and parents every summer is the high school entrance exam," Mr. Long raised the issue.

Responding to this content, Minister Nguyen Kim Son admitted that the 40-60 ratio, in which 40% of students finishing junior high school go to vocational schools, the rest go to high school, is a rigid division, lacking both scientific and practical basis.

This regulation is stated in Decision 522 issued by the Ministry of Education and Training. Minister Son said that at this time, a document is needed to replace the above decision. The Ministry is proposing a replacement decree in the direction that career guidance must be substantial and voluntary to ensure that students who wish to study at high school level, which many countries have universalized, not taking junior high school as the standard. Even vocational training, the world's vocational level is much higher.

The Ministry is currently proposing to amend three laws, including the Law on Education, the Law on Vocational Education and the Law on Higher Education, which includes a very important content: creating a system of interconnection between general education, vocational training and universities in a synchronous and smooth manner so that the internal stream is voluntary, meeting the requirements of the new period.

Visited a good school in Hanoi but also had no music room

06/20/2025 09:02 GMT+7

Pointing out the current situation of low percentage of science and technology majors in mathematics due to foreign language barriers, and the large number of scientists but no strong impactful works, delegate Duong Khac Mai (Dak Nong) asked about the solution to improve the quality of general education as the foundation, thereby improving the quality of university education to create high-quality human resources?

Delegate Duong Khac Mai - Photo: GIA HAN

According to the Minister, improving general education is an important solution because only when the foundation is solid will it be effective. Since 2018, general education has been innovated, the quality of learners has been improved, and from 2019 to now, innovation has been actively implemented. Through evaluation and monitoring of educational innovation, important results have been achieved for general education innovation.

However, Mr. Son acknowledged that there is still much to be done, such as improving the quality of teachers, ensuring the quantity of staff and improving qualifications. The Politburo and the Secretariat have had a policy to resolve the education sector's payroll with more than 65,000 payrolls, helping to improve the quality of teachers.

For schools, the difficulty in implementing the program is the lack of teachers for new subjects, classrooms with equipment such as music, sports, fine arts, areas for students to practice skills, foreign languages, etc.

"One day, I went to a good middle school and asked if there was a music room, but the teacher shook his head. If there is no good school in Hanoi, it will take a long time for other schools to have one. So this is the goal, but it takes time to invest," said the Minister.

Continuing the question about school violence being a worrying challenge, shifting from physical violence to mental violence, delegate Nang Xo Vi (Kon Tum) pointed out that this situation is more worrying in remote areas. Therefore, the delegate asked the minister how he assessed the current situation and roadmap for building a safe, healthy, and humane learning environment?

According to the Minister, urban and suburban educational institutions, where there are many people, have their own complexities; remote and disadvantaged areas, school violence has a different nature. However, in terms of fairness, the problem of school violence in remote areas is not as complicated as in urban areas, especially school violence in cyberspace is more complicated, with 20-25% of forms of online bullying. Therefore, according to the Minister, in the coming time, we will focus on solutions to this problem.

Prepare conditions to teach the second lesson to students from September

06/20/2025 08:58 GMT+7

Delegate Nguyen Lam Thanh (Thai Nguyen) asked about the specific implementation of the policy of teaching the second class for students.

Answering this question, the minister said that organizing a second session in schools is a very important goal. At this time, teaching 2 sessions/day at primary level has been quite popular. Over 99% of primary schools have met the conditions to teach 2 sessions/day, while at secondary and high school levels, the conditions for teaching 2 sessions/day are still very difficult. Many schools in large cities have limited space, and facilities are lacking and weak, making it very difficult to implement this.

He informed that following the direction of the General Secretary on preparing for the second class of the day, the Prime Minister issued Directive 17, emphasizing that starting from the new school year, this September, provinces, cities, and schools must focus on maximizing conditions to organize the second class for students at school. According to his point of view, depending on the conditions of each place, they will try their best and the second class will not be charged.

General Secretary To Lam and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attend the question-and-answer session - Photo: GIA HAN

This class teaches subjects that help students develop comprehensively such as physical training, sports, music, fine arts, foreign language proficiency, self-study, group work, life skills, and support...

The Minister emphasized that although this is a difficult task, it is a major direction and is a very necessary and should be done job.

The Ministry is currently preparing the program and guidelines, while localities are being proactive and active. He hopes to gradually organize this well, and the goal of comprehensive development of learners with high school students is an important improvement.

Minister Nguyen Kim Son: Circular 29 does not prohibit extra teaching, only manages and regulates less.

06/20/2025 08:49 GMT+7

Opening the question-and-answer session, Minister Nguyen Kim Son answered the question of delegate Do Thi Viet Ha (Bac Giang) about the issue of some higher education institutions organizing additional competency assessment exams and using these results for university admissions. Does this increase exam pressure and cost for candidates living far away?

Mr. Son said that in the autonomy of higher education institutions, there is the right to autonomy in enrollment and training. Circular 08 allows educational institutions, if capable, to organize their own exams for enrollment, and the results of those exams can be shared with other educational institutions for enrollment.

Currently, in addition to the high school graduation exam, there are educational institutions that organize exams temporarily called competency assessments (each place has more than 10,000 candidates participating). However, according to a survey, the number of candidates using the results of this exam for university admission only accounts for 3% of the total number of candidates, not many.

Regarding the issue of whether it is costly or not, Mr. Son said that in fact, registering for the exams is voluntary, and at the same time, this is also a form of increasing opportunities for candidates to take the university entrance exam.

More importantly, currently, examination organizations (including Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi National Universities) are organizing exams on computers, with immediate results. This is a pilot step in using computer science to evaluate and recruit students.

According to the education sector's plan, from 2027, a pilot high school exam will be conducted on computers. With this experiment, in the next few years, it is possible to move towards high school graduation and university exams on the basis of applying computer science to evaluate and enroll students.

Regarding the question of delegate Tran Thi Thu Hang asking how the education sector can improve the quality of regular school hours, Mr. Son said that yesterday (June 19), when answering about extra teaching and learning, he talked about the role, importance, and meaning of regular school hours.

"When answering this question (of delegate Hang), we must talk about solutions to improve the quality of general education in general and to improve the quality of regular teaching hours, we must solve problems aimed at the important causes leading to extra teaching and learning," said Mr. Son.

According to Mr. Son, to focus on the quality of official teaching hours, the first condition is nothing other than having a sufficient number of teachers, wholeheartedly devoted to official teaching hours, without being distracted, scattered, or worrying about many other things.

"As we know, to teach a regular class hour, teachers need to spend many hours preparing lessons, grading papers, evaluating, participating in professional activities, and supporting students. So, in addition to class hours, teachers must have activities to serve that teaching session. Circular 29 does not essentially prohibit teachers from teaching extra classes, but only manages and regulates them. This means that in addition to class hours, teachers can participate in extra teaching activities. However, if too much time is spent on extra teaching activities, there will not be much time to take care of the quality of regular teaching hours."

Mr. Son analyzed that the teaching hours of the 2018 general education program require more teacher activities, so it becomes even more important if teachers focus on the main teaching hours.

In addition, the facilities must also be more complete. It is difficult for a regular class of 60-70 students to have good quality; it is very difficult for a teacher with a class of 60-70 students to innovate methods, implement individualized education, and pay attention to each student. Therefore, adequate school equipment and spacious teaching rooms are conditions for good implementation of the regular curriculum.

Schools are violence-free when adults stop fighting.

06/20/2025 08:34 GMT+7

Delegate Nguyen Minh Tam (Quang Binh) raised the issue of when there will be no more school violence and can the Minister commit to a time in the future when school violence will end, the responsibility of the school, and how to handle it when it occurs?

Delegate Nguyen Minh Tam - Photo: GIA HAN

Answering this question, Minister Nguyen Kim Son thanked the delegate for his sarcastic question when he expressed his frustration about the issue of school violence.

He said that educators, more than anyone else, are anxious to see this no longer happen in schools and that every school is a happy school, where there is no violence.

However, it must be recognized that schools are not separate from society. The walls surrounding schools are increasingly fragile, the distance between inside and outside the school is gradually erased by the internet, social networks and modern media.

As a part of society, the Minister said that the problem of violence in society, especially in modern society, is still complicated. "If I were to say that one day there will be no more violence in schools, I would say that it will be the day when adults no longer fight. On that day, children will look at each other with pure love," the Minister shared.

Delegate Nguyen Minh Tam asked and the Minister answered.

However, he pointed out that it is difficult and we have to face the reality of it by all means and measures to minimize, support and control as much as possible.

The root, the Minister said, is that statistics from the education sector show that up to 70% of students who commit acts of violence against others have special family circumstances such as divorced parents, witnessing domestic violence, or being subjected to domestic violence themselves, which affects their psychology, attitudes, behaviors, and perspectives. Therefore, a very important part of teaching children morality and personality lies in the family, the example of adults.

At school, the aspects of control, psychological support, strengthening moral education, teaching people, and strengthening positive education to limit students from falling into violent behavior. "Of course, schools are the places that fully support and control this. We will do our best," the Minister added.

THANH CHUNG - TIEN LONG - NGOC AN

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