Nearly 100% of students pass graduation
Up to now, the Ministry of Education and Training has not announced the national high school graduation rate in 2025. Localities have announced and completed the graduation assessment for students. But for many years, the graduation rate has been almost absolute.
According to statistics from the Department of Education and Training of Dong Thap, in the 2025 high school graduation exam, the number of students in the province passing the graduation exam reached 99.34%. The high school graduation rate in Lai Chau reached 99.76%. With an average score of 5.63 points, Lai Chau ranked 32/34 provinces and cities in terms of high school graduation scores in 2025, down 0.54 points compared to the previous year. The graduation rate of Lao Cai reached 99.10%, of which the old Yen Bai province reached over 99.97%. Vinh Long province had a high school graduation result in 2025 of 99.58%. The high school graduation rate of students in Dien Bien province this year reached 97.71%... These are the middle and average localities of the whole country in terms of average high school graduation exam scores and it can be seen that the graduation rate reaches from nearly 98% to nearly 100%. In centrally-run cities, the graduation rate of students also reached nearly 100%, such as Hanoi (99.73%), Da Nang (98.41%).
With the high graduation rate, many people question whether the exam should be decentralized to the local level to reduce pressure and costs. Admissions are the autonomy of universities, the Ministry of Education and Training should stop at the state management level.
According to Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duc, University of Technology (Vietnam National University, Hanoi), in the long term, Vietnam should have a strategy to integrate with the world , separate and have its own university entrance exams like the ACT and SAT aptitude tests of the United States. Currently, the results of the high school graduation exam have been, are and will continue to be used by all universities for admission, so the 2-in-1 exam is economical and effective. Mr. Duc believes that for the exam to be effective, it depends on 4 most important factors: exam questions, exam organization (invigilation), exam marking and admission method. These four steps must be effective and safe for the exam to successfully achieve the 2-in-1 goal. Mr. Duc noted that in order to have quality, classify candidates and avoid the situation of some years being difficult, some years being easy, the exam questions need to be innovated in the direction of assessing knowledge, ability and thinking and need a stable exam matrix.
Organizing university entrance exams
From another perspective, teacher Nguyen Thanh Dung (HCMC) said that universities should abandon the admission method based on academic records. Management agencies can base on academic records to consider students' graduation (because basically almost 100% of students pass the exam - reporter). Mr. Dung analyzed that this increases fairness and reduces pressure, which will help reduce unnecessary competition at the high school level, avoiding the situation of lopsided learning, chasing after scores to have good academic records to enter university. This also helps students have more time to develop comprehensively.
According to teacher Nguyen Thanh Dung (HCMC), the Ministry of Education and Training should focus its efforts on organizing an exam for universities to recruit students. According to Mr. Dung, focusing resources on the entrance exam will help improve the quality of university entrance. Schools will have a more standard measure to assess the actual input capacity of candidates, instead of relying on the academic transcript scores which may not be consistent in standards between high schools. Synchronizing standards, a common exam will help establish a common ground for assessing capacity nationwide, making it easier for universities to select candidates. Reducing costs and complexity, instead of each school or group of schools organizing their own exam, a common exam will help save costs, resources and reduce complexity in organization.
Dr. Sai Cong Hong, an expert from the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges, agrees that considering decentralizing the organization of high school graduation exams to provinces and centrally-run cities is a necessary and inevitable step to adapt to reality and comprehensively reform the education system.
The next benefit is to reduce the burden on students, not having to "race" to maintain high scores throughout 3 years of high school just to be considered for university admission. At the same time, it is more transparent and fair because the exam questions are carefully built and evaluated by a team of experts.
However, to achieve the benefits as stated, teacher Nguyen Thanh Dung affirmed that the Ministry of Education and Training needs to build a team of professional, well-trained test makers, not only based on experience, but also having knowledge of test theory, educational psychology, and modern assessment methods. The test making process is scientific and rigorous, standardized from the stages of building a question bank, testing, appraisal, to approving the questions. This process requires the participation of many independent experts to ensure quality and objectivity. Invest enough time and resources. There needs to be a reasonable budget and time for this process. Diversify the question formats. The test does not stop at objective multiple choice questions, it is possible to consider integrating open-ended questions, questions requiring critical thinking, and problem solving to assess more comprehensive abilities. Use software and tools to support the analysis of question difficulty and differentiation, and build smart question banks.
“A single test, no matter how well constructed, can hardly assess all the specialized abilities and inclinations of each field of study. For example, the abilities of an engineering student will be different from those of a social science student.
The proposal to assign the high school graduation exam to localities has been mentioned many times by voters. In 2023, answering the press on this issue, Prof. Dr. Huynh Van Chuong, Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) said that the Ministry will continue to research the roadmap and criteria for building a common library/test bank when conditions are met to decentralize to localities and educational institutions to organize output quality assessment exams at the high school level instead of the current method of one national exam at the same time.
There could be a common test to assess core competencies (e.g. logical thinking, reading comprehension, writing), then universities could have additional specialized competency tests or interviews to further assess the specific requirements of the field of study,” said teacher Nguyen Thanh Dung.
He believes that clearly separating the goal of recognizing high school graduation and the goal of university admission is necessary to improve the overall quality of education. However, to realize the goal of having only one effective university entrance exam, there must be serious investment in the process, the test-making team and the application of technology to ensure fairness, objectivity and the ability to comprehensively assess candidates' abilities. He asserts that creating one test with one purpose is too difficult, one test with two purposes compared to the current reality of Vietnam is impossible.
Source: https://tienphong.vn/co-nen-bo-ky-thi-hai-trong-mot-post1764735.tpo
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