According to the school's enrollment plan, in the event that the number of applications exceeds the enrollment quota, international English proficiency certificates will be considered from high to low and additional criteria such as the total score of the Vietnamese and Math tests at the end of grade 5 will be considered.

Similarly, for the 2023-2024 school year, Le Quy Don Secondary and High School (Nam Tu Liem, Hanoi) directly admits students with an IELTS score of 5.5 or higher, and a TOEFL iBT score of 65 or higher. Archimedes Inter-level School and Doan Thi Diem High School (Hanoi) also use IELTS English certificates as one of the direct admission methods... The story makes the public wonder because international English certificates are increasingly being used by many schools to "weigh and measure" students' abilities. It has become the main tool in the race to enroll in schools from university to high school. Never before has the country'seducation system "sanctified" foreign language certificates so much.

English is very necessary and important, but like any other foreign language, it is just a tool. Illustration photo: VNA

English is very necessary and important, but like many other foreign languages, it is only a tool. No country takes foreign languages as the core to develop science for the country. To develop science and society, education must start with natural sciences such as Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry or social sciences. That is the foundation for training and developing generations of engineers, experts, economists , and culturalists for the development of the country. Being good at English is an advantage to absorb human knowledge, but to absorb it, one must also have a good foundation of basic knowledge. Rarely does anyone become a scientist just because of being good at foreign languages.

If we let the race called foreign languages guide the whole society that learning English is the only best path, then... it's very dangerous!

Early foreign language learning may stem from the positive perception of some parents who follow the trend of globalization and integration, wanting their children to become global citizens. Adolescence is the “golden period” for developing foreign language skills, but “achievementism” has distorted that good goal. Just for better learning opportunities, many parents force their children to take cram school, study for grades, and take accelerated courses... While the nature of this cram school does not fully reflect the students’ abilities.

This trend also partly shows the inability of the education system to assess the “real” abilities of students. Faced with “fabricated” transcripts, many schools have to rely on international certificates because they are more reliable. As a result, the whole society runs from one achievement to another, wasting a lot of money, while the beneficiaries of this are some IELTS test preparation organizations.

This reality requires the education sector to be more aggressive and transparent in exams and student evaluations to produce truly learned and talented people. Along with that is a change in parents' awareness. English is important but not everything. For primary and secondary school students, parents need to help their children find harmony between subjects, including encouraging them to study basic science subjects well. This lopsided learning style only makes studying a burden for students when they have to "tiptoe" with stress and fatigue in races beyond their age.

Thai An