Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges: Should review the selection of high school subjects

Students have not received full career guidance at junior high school level but have to choose subjects at the beginning of high school and can only choose the combination arranged by the school, which is unreasonable.

The high school graduation exam from 2025 will have many changes and the petition of the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges expressed the view that the exam plan has limitations and shortcomings - Photo: NAM TRAN

The Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges has just sent the Minister of Education and Training a petition related to educational innovation, including subject selection and graduation exams.

Many unreasonable choices of high school subjects

In the content of generaleducation innovation, the petition emphasizes the shortcomings in choosing subjects at high school level.

The document states that in reality, students must choose subjects from the beginning of high school, affirming their specialized direction right after entering school. This leads to many students choosing the wrong direction, but the number of students who want to change their choice faces difficulties. Specifically, the difficulties are due to the school not having the subject combination that students want, or having the subject combination but the class size is too large to accept more transfer students.

The petition also points out the reality that is contrary to the goal of designing the general education program at high school level: Students are not allowed to choose subjects according to their abilities, strengths, and career orientation, but can only choose from subject combinations arranged by the school, depending on the specific situation of teachers and facilities of each school.

The Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges has the opinion: Students have not received full career guidance at secondary school level, but have to choose subjects at the beginning of a new level and can only choose the combination arranged by the school, which is unreasonable.

Next, students must base their decision on the subjects they have chosen to apply for university or college admission, which is also an unreasonable requirement. Especially when universities and colleges have not yet announced their admission methods.

Reality shows that the consequence of this is a decrease in human resources invested in natural sciences , and a decrease in the quality of basic sciences and STEM sciences.

The association recommends that the Ministry of Education and Training urgently evaluate the entire 2018 general education program at three levels, especially high school, and if "serious shortcomings are discovered, decisions to make adjustments should be made immediately."

In addition, there needs to be drastic solutions to direct the departments of education and training to implement in-depth career guidance from the end of junior high school and the beginning of high school.

In the immediate future, the Association recommends that the Ministry of Education and Training require localities to direct high schools to review the list of subject combinations to give students more opportunities to register for many university admission combinations. Allow students to change their subject choices according to their needs to serve the admission of university majors that are suitable to their abilities and strengths formed during their high school studies.

High school graduation exam from 2025: Review of exam questions

The petition points out the limitations of the graduation exam plan from 2025 that has been approved. Specifically, with this method, there are up to 36 different ways to choose exam subjects, causing difficulties in organizing the exam, especially in creating exam questions and keeping exam questions confidential. The exam subjects have a time limit of 50 minutes, of which 40% are multiple choice questions of true-false type, making it difficult to accurately assess the learner's ability.

The difference between the regular education program and the general education program in 2018 is 20-30% in subjects. But when taking the graduation exam, candidates of the two groups above take the same exam, which is unfair. Based on the reference exam questions recently announced by the Ministry of Education and Training, the exam questions have a part of specialized content. But in reality, not all students are able to choose and study specialized topics.

The Association recommends that the State establish or permit the establishment of a number of independent testing centers operating under a non-profit mechanism to deploy public services in the field of educational measurement and assessment.

For the 2025 exam, the Association recommends developing different exam questions suitable for students studying the regular education program and high school, ensuring the classification of the exam questions.

The association also proposed allowing candidates to choose additional elective subjects, including subjects that students do not study at school, to ensure that students develop their self-study ability and have more opportunities to apply for university and college admission.

The Association recommends that in the following years, the exam should be a competency assessment test, mainly on computers. The exam questions will be drawn from independent testing centers assigned by the Ministry of Education and Training.

Localities can proactively organize the exam multiple times a year according to the time frame prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training. While the exam is still on paper, the Ministry of Education and Training should organize the high school graduation exam according to the 4 groups A, B, C, D as before.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/hiep-hoi-cac-truong-dai-hoc-cao-dang-viet-nam-nen-xem-lai-viec-lua-chon-mon-hoc-cap-thpt-20241204105503349.htm