According to a survey at many high schools in Ho Chi Minh City, the majority of students still choose English and natural sciences as their high school graduation exam subjects.
Immediately after the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) announced the 2025 high school graduation exam regulations, many high schools in Ho Chi Minh City conducted surveys and probes into the registration of elective subjects for 12th grade students, and at the same time planned their review.
Many subjects are not chosen by students.
According to the new regulations on the 2025 high school graduation exam that the Ministry of Education and Training has just announced, high school students will take 4 subjects in 3 sessions: literature, math and an optional exam of 2 subjects. The optional subjects include: Physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography, economic and legal education, information technology, industrial technology (abbreviated as industrial technology), agricultural technology (abbreviated as agricultural technology), foreign languages (English, Russian, French, Chinese, German, Japanese, Korean).
Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Chuong, Principal of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School (District 3), said that the school conducted statistics on the rate of students registering for elective subjects in the 2025 high school graduation exam right after the Lunar New Year. Although the registration survey has not been conducted, Ms. Chuong predicted that the results will not be much different from previous years. According to her, the majority of the school's students still choose natural sciences and English as graduation exam subjects.
Ho Chi Minh City students take high school graduation exam in 2024. Photo: HOANG TRIEU
At Duong Van Thi High School (Thu Duc City), according to a survey from the beginning of the school year, when registering for elective subjects for the graduation exam, English was still the top choice with 354 students choosing, followed by physics, chemistry, history, geography, economic education and law, and biology. The two subjects of information technology and technology were not chosen by any students.
At Nguyen Huu Huan High School (Thu Duc City), out of 621 12th grade students, only 1 student chose technology, 2 students chose information technology, 5 students chose economics and law; the rest mainly chose English, chemistry, biology, physics...
At Nguyen Huu Tho High School (District 4), according to Mr. Do Dinh Dao, the school's principal, the percentage of students choosing English as a graduation exam subject is still very high even though it is an elective subject, along with physics, chemistry, biology, history, geography...
Speaking more about the graduation exam subject selection rate, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc, Principal of Duong Van Thi High School, said that since the beginning of the school year, the school has allowed students to register for classes based on graduation exam subjects. According to registration data, the majority of students still choose English and natural science subjects as elective subjects in the graduation exam.
Difficult to fail graduation
According to Mr. Do Dinh Dao, based on survey data, in the second semester, the school will have a plan to increase review and tutoring hours so that students can best prepare for the high school graduation exam.
Meanwhile, according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Chuong, in reality, with the graduation formula for 2025 as announced by the Ministry of Education and Training, it is very difficult for students to fail graduation, and it is also difficult for students to study skewedly, because the transcript score is still calculated. Therefore, those who set a goal of applying to a certain university will try harder, and the study plan has been implemented by schools since the beginning of the year, with full subjects and study topics.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc said that with the 50-50 graduation formula (academic transcript and graduation exam scores) as regulated, it would be very difficult for students to fail to graduate. However, it would be a disadvantage if any educational institution conducted a close assessment of students' abilities.
"In reality, at school, right from the beginning of the year, the school has required teachers to closely evaluate students' abilities, so there will be students with low scores. However, it is necessary to base on graduation exam scores to evaluate the teaching quality of a school or a locality, not on graduation rates," Ms. Truc suggested.
MSc. Pham Le Thanh, a teacher at Nguyen Hien High School (District 11), said that changing the high school graduation exam results from 2025 to account for 50% will lead to the exam questions of subjects being more differentiated to screen many types of students. Thereby, accurately assessing the learning outcomes of learners according to the goals and standards required by the 2018 general education program; using exam results to consider recognizing high school graduation and as one of the bases for assessing the quality of teaching and learning of general education institutions, providing reliable data for universities and vocational education institutions to use in enrollment.
According to Mr. Pham Le Thanh, increasing the number of years of study to calculate the learning score and the percentage of learning results in high school (from 30% to 50%) in considering graduation recognition is reasonable. The reason is that the paper-based test only assesses the specific abilities of the subject within a limited scope of knowledge, and cannot assess the general abilities and qualities of students. The general abilities and qualities of students must be developed through teaching and learning activities, the interaction between teachers and students throughout the learning process, associated with the assessment of the process and the assessment of their progress.
Technical advice for students with English certificates
The leader of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School said that at the school, there are many students with English certificates - according to regulations, they are exempted from the exam. However, under the new regulations, because it is not converted to a 10-point score as before, the school will carefully advise students who use English for university admission to consider taking the exam to get a higher score, and if it is only for graduation, they should choose a safer option.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/chon-mon-thi-de-khong-rot-tot-nghiep-thpt-196241229213805532.htm
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