This year's exam in Hanoi has approximately 147,000 ninth-grade students, but only 88,000 places are available in public high schools, meaning about 40% of students will be forced to choose private schools or vocational training. In Da Nang, more than 7,300 students are at risk of failing to get into public schools, with nearly 46,000 ninth-grade students only securing 38,690 places. In Ho Chi Minh City, after the merger, the number of students has increased sharply, while the enrollment rate in public high schools, despite efforts, only reaches about 70%. This means that over 51,000 students will not have a place in public high schools…
The debate continues over whether to keep or abolish the 10th-grade entrance exam – currently the most stressful exam, even more difficult than the university entrance exam. The exam is agonizing and heartbreaking; abolishing it would create a level playing field between the good and the poor, leaving no one motivated to study, and leading to a decline in educational quality… Many localities cite a shortage of public high schools and teachers as the reason for tightening enrollment quotas. It's strange that with declining birth rates, a rapidly aging population, a large number of newly graduated teachers struggling to find jobs, and vast areas of vacant facilities after mergers, our children still lack places to study?!
While the policy of career guidance and streaming is no longer applied mechanically and indifferently as before, the Ministry of Education and Training has recently directed that streaming after lower and upper secondary education should not be forced, but based on the principle of matching students' abilities and aspirations; being linked to the human resource needs of each region and the capacity of the education system to meet those needs. Therefore, the fact that every year 30-40% of lower secondary school graduates (mostly in large cities) are excluded from the opportunity to attend public high school is a paradox.
Looking back, it's true that the "10th grade bottleneck" is mostly a problem in large cities with high rates of urbanization. In the vast majority of provinces and cities nationwide, the doors to public high schools are always wide open, and in many places, there's even a shortage of students. This provides a solid basis for the goal of achieving universal high school education and equivalent levels by 2035, as outlined in Resolution 71 of the Politburo on breakthroughs in education and training development, to be entirely feasible.
It's time for large, densely populated cities to take matters into their own hands and unlock the "bottleneck" of the 10th-grade entrance exam in their localities. This could involve opening more schools, recruiting teachers, reorganizing the public education system, creating conditions for the development of private schools, and researching and improving the exam system to reduce pressure on students and their families. And perhaps the central government should have its own special mechanisms for this transitional exam specifically for large cities facing the pressures of urbanization?
Hanoi is implementing several new regulations for the 10th grade entrance exam, such as allowing candidates to register for any public high school in the city (removing the regulation on enrollment zones); for the first time, students from other provinces temporarily residing in Hanoi have the right to take the exam and study at high schools in the capital; candidates can register online and monitor the competition ratio of each school to adjust their preferences accordingly… Hopefully, these reforms to the 10th grade entrance exam this year in the capital will bring many positive results, so that the situation where 40% of students face the pressure of "overcrowding" will no longer exist.
Source: https://tienphong.vn/nut-that-lop-10-post1832869.tpo
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