Overcoming the shortcomings of the admissions combination

In recent years, when applying for university entrance exams, candidates have increasingly chosen the Social Science (KHXH) group. This is a good trend, students will be less "afraid" of History and Geography subjects. However, this leads to consequences in human resource training, because the economy increasingly requires more workers related to science and technology.

Dr. Bui Thi An - former National Assembly delegate said that in the 2024 high school graduation exam, only 37% of the total of nearly 1.1 million candidates taking the exam chose the Natural Science exam, which is a worrying reality. In particular, according to Ms. An, the reason why the number of candidates registering for the Natural Science exam is less than the Social Science exam is partly because choosing the Social Science group will make studying easier. On the contrary, the number of candidates registering for the Natural Science exam is only 37% because the knowledge of the Natural Science subjects is difficult. In particular, the majors at the university level training in science, engineering, and technology are difficult majors, requiring a lot of knowledge of Mathematics, Physics, etc. This shows that, without orientation from the beginning, few candidates will choose to take the exam and study STEM majors (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

According to Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duc - Chairman of the University Council of the University of Technology (Vietnam National University, Hanoi),educational science research has shown that in the context of the 4.0 industrial revolution, knowledge of STEM and natural sciences is not only a requirement for science, technology and engineering majors but also a provision for all fields. Human resources that are not equipped with knowledge and skills related to STEM and natural sciences will affect the quality of development of new industries. A country with a higher proportion of candidates choosing the Social Sciences exam for university admission than Natural Sciences has been raising a big question: how can human resources integrate in the context of the 4.0 industrial revolution?

In fact, in many multidisciplinary universities, for many years now, the technical and technological majors have always had lower scores than the economic and service majors. The fact that candidates flock to study social sciences over natural sciences is clearly a biased trend. In the short term, it may not have much impact, but in the long term, it will risk causing an imbalance in human resources for national development.

Experts also commented that the world trend shows that STEM professions are increasingly easy to find jobs with high incomes, while social sciences have limited jobs. If there is no solution to balance social sciences and natural sciences, it will lead to the risk that students will tend to choose social sciences to graduate safely, instead of choosing a combination of subjects based on career trends and real passion for the subject. On the other hand, provinces and cities with developed socio-economy have a higher rate of students choosing natural sciences than provinces with difficult socio-economy, which makes the gap in quality and structure of human resources between provinces and cities increasingly wide.

Therefore, improving the gap in the proportion of choosing the combination of Natural Sciences and Social Sciences needs to be started very early. For example, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Hoa - Head of the Department of Examination and Quality Assurance (University of Transport) shared that universities, especially technical schools, want to do career guidance from lower levels, even from middle school to high school, to create passion and sow the seeds of Natural Sciences so that the proportion of students who love nature and society is equal.

Looking for a deeper cause, it can be seen that the orientation of choosing the high school graduation exam has probably been more or less constrained since the time students have to choose a combination when entering grade 10. Currently, changing the subject combination in the middle is not simple, if students want to change the combination, they have to wait until the end of a school year to have enough results of the chosen subjects to change classes.

Aiming for innovation in examinations and avoiding lopsided learning, the Ministry of Education and Training is widely soliciting opinions on the Regulations on Secondary School and High School Admissions. As a result of soliciting opinions from 63 Departments of Education and Training on the draft Regulations mentioned above, 60/63 provinces and cities have agreed with the plan to have an entrance exam for grade 10 with 3 subjects: Math, Literature and a third subject or a combined exam.

Experts expect that when organizing the drawing of lots for the exam subjects, students in grades 6, 7, and 8 will have to focus on studying all subjects equally, and when entering grade 10, the selection ratio of the groups will be less skewed than it is now. From there, when taking the high school graduation exam and university entrance exam, the selection ratio between the groups will gradually return to balance. Thus, while waiting for strategic and comprehensive solutions, adjusting the strategy starting from changing the selection of subjects for the 10th grade entrance exam is also considered a reasonable improvement, aiming to reduce the difference between the two admission combinations mentioned above.

Source: https://daidoanket.vn/khac-phuc-bat-cap-to-hop-tuyen-sinh-10295889.html