Da Nang: Children in the top positions still cannot participate in the national excellent student competition, parents are upset

TPO - Many parents in Da Nang were upset when their children, despite having high scores in the national excellent student selection exam, were still not allowed into the team, while many other students with lower scores were called.

Ms. NT, a parent of a student at a high school in Huong Tra ward, said that near the end of September, her child participated in the selection exam for the national excellent student team in Geography and got 11.25 points.

“Each subject will take 20 students to the team, taking them in order of exam scores from highest to lowest. With this score, my child is ranked 18/120, which means he is in the top of the team. But he was still eliminated because the Department of Education and Training (DET) took 10 students from the old Quang Nam province, 10 students from the old Da Nang city, not based on exam score ranking,” said Ms. T.

Da Nang has 200 students participating in the national excellent student selection exam.

Ms. TH, a parent in Tam Ky ward, was also upset when her child scored 14.25 points in the History exam, ranking 11th out of 20. However, her child was still eliminated because each old locality took 10 students. Thus, the scores of her child and many other eliminated students were higher than the scores of students selected for the team.

“There was a case where a student from the old Quang Nam was eliminated but his score was higher than the 7 students from the old Da Nang who were selected for the team. Is that fair for them? This makes the students lose the opportunity to study further, lose confidence and motivation to try,” she said frankly.

Parents shared that on August 20, the Department of Education and Training issued a plan to organize the National Excellent Student Competition, clearly stipulating that students would be selected for the team in order of test scores from highest to lowest. However, on September 9, the Department issued a document regulating the National Excellent Student Competition selection team.

It emphasizes: "The number of candidates for each subject team is based on the regulations on the number of the Ministry of Education and Training and in order to maintain stability and ensure the quality of training students participating in the selection exam for the National High School Excellent Student Competition in the 2025-2026 school year of the 3 specialized high schools in the past school years, the number of candidates in each subject team of the city is kept the same according to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training on the number of each locality before the merger". This means dividing the number of students participating in the national team by 10 - 10 according to the old administrative unit. According to some parents, it was only when their children were notified of their elimination that they learned that the Department selected in this way.

What does the Department of Education and Training say?

Speaking with Tien Phong, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Nam, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Da Nang City, said he had received feedback from parents.

On September 23 and 24, the Department organized an exam to select a team to compete in the National High School Student Competition for the 2025-2026 school year. On October 6, the Department decided to establish a team of 200 students to participate in the National High School Student Competition.

The Department's leaders affirmed that the establishment of a team to ensure the number of candidates for each subject in each locality before the merger is in accordance with current regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training, ensuring stability and suitability in the initial stage after the merger.

Specifically, currently, Circular No. 17/2023/TT-BGDĐT dated October 10, 2023 of the Ministry of Education and Training promulgating the Regulations on the selection of national excellent students is still in effect. Accordingly, the teams for each subject of the old Quang Nam and Da Nang are regulated to have a maximum of 10 candidates.

Up to now, there are still no regulations or instructions from the Ministry on selecting teams for each competition with a common number for the new Da Nang city.

In addition, each old locality is allowed to select 10 candidates/subject to ensure fairness in the transition period: both old localities still maintain the same opportunities, avoiding the feeling of disadvantage and imbalance, and also respecting the efforts, resources and training organization process that have been invested and implemented according to the separate model of each old locality.

Parents disagreed with this explanation. In reality, students from all over Da Nang City took the same test, and their test scores were evaluated by a panel of examiners.

“If we had chosen based on the old locality, we should have let each locality take their own test and then take 10 students from each side. But now, the students take the same test, showing their abilities and results are superior to other candidates in the whole new city, then to “ensure fairness” with 10 students from each side, we eliminate students with high scores, which is completely unreasonable,” a parent protested.

The leader of the Department of Education and Training of Da Nang City emphasized that the merger of provinces and cities will take effect from July 1, 2025, while the admission, process, training and selection of excellent students of schools have taken place since previous school years, according to the structure of each old locality. Therefore, if a common team is chosen for the new locality, students of the old locality may have limited opportunities to participate due to one-sided competition; it will be easy for candidates from one locality to have an overwhelming advantage, leading to many excellent candidates who have been carefully trained in the remaining locality being eliminated from the team, causing a feeling of disadvantage and injustice in the early stages of the merger.

Source: https://tienphong.vn/da-nang-con-lot-top-van-khong-duoc-du-thi-hoc-sinh-gioi-quoc-gia-phu-huynh-buc-xuc-post1788232.tpo