Confused because 7.0 IELTS is not exempt from high school graduation English exam

Ho Chi Minh City More than 700 students are confused when their IELTS certificate is considered invalid, even a score of 7.0 is not exempted and counted as a 10 in the English graduation exam, according to a new document from the Ministryof Education .

Mr. Le Ngoc, 48 years old, residing in Hoc Mon district, Ho Chi Minh City, shared that in early May, when registering for the high school graduation exam, his child registered to be exempted from the English exam because he had an IELTS certificate of 7.0. The certificate was issued by IDP on September 22, 2022, valid for two years.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training 's guidelines in April, candidates with an IELTS certificate of 4.0 or higher or equivalent are exempted from the exam and have their 10 English subjects counted towards their high school graduation score. The certificate is valid until at least June 27, 2023. Therefore, Mr. Ngoc's child does not review for this subject but focuses on reviewing the remaining subjects.

On June 13, the school informed his child that he was not eligible for exemption from the English exam, according to new guidelines from the Department of Quality Management, Ministry of Education and Training. In a document sent to localities on June 9, the Department of Quality Management stated that the legal certificate must be issued before September 10, 2022.

"My son is very confused," said Mr. Ngoc. The father and son could not accept that they had achieved 7.0 IELTS but were not exempted from the English subject while candidates with an IELTS certificate of 4.0 were converted to 10 points.

Mr. Ngoc's IELTS certificate was issued on September 22, 2022. Photo: NVCC — Mr. Ngoc's son's IELTS certificate was issued on September 22, 2022. Photo: *Provided by the character*

Responding to VnExpress on the afternoon of June 14, an official from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training said that in recent days, the Department has received many cases of 12th grade students with foreign language certificates issued from September 10 to November 11, 2022, with questions and concerns like Mr. Ngoc's case.

"The Department is compiling a list of affected cases to send a letter to the Ministry of Education and Training for comments," he said, adding that many of his colleagues in other localities are also "confused by the Ministry's new instructions." According to preliminary statistics, 752 students in Ho Chi Minh City fall into this category.

This guidance is related to the postponement of the IELTS test in Vietnam in early November last year. According to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training, after September 10, 2022, joint organization of foreign language proficiency certificates must be licensed by the Ministry. However, it was not until mid-November that the IELTS test and certificate organizations completed this requirement.

Mr. Ngoc said that if his child's certificate was invalid, the Ministry of Education and Training should have provided early guidance so that students could have a plan to review or retake the exam. "Why did they issue guidance just two weeks before the exam, even though the other units had to stop organizing the exam since last year?", the parent asked.

By this evening, Mr. Ho Tan Minh, Chief of Office of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, said that the Department had received instructions from the Ministry to maintain the regulation on exemption from the Foreign Language graduation exam. Certificates that are valid until June 27 will be accepted. Officials from the Departments of Education of Dong Nai and Nghe An also said they had received this instruction.

In May, the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City rejected the IELTS certificates of 44 candidates for master's and doctoral degrees for the same reason. The matter was only resolved when the Department of Quality Management confirmed that the above foreign language certificates were still valid in admission and training.

Duong Tam - Nhat Le

*Parents' names have been changed

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