Deputy Minister Pham Ngoc Thuong: We should not be too concerned about points 9 and 10.

Speaking at the conference to provide information on the 2025 High School Graduation Exam scores to the press on the afternoon of July 15, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong affirmed that the exam was successfully organized and said: "We should not be too concerned about 9 and 10 points. We need to gradually abandon the mindset of evaluating scores, even though they are quantitative numbers, they are not everything."

Báo Tiền Phong•15/07/2025

Experts surprised by the "amazingly beautiful" score spectrum

According to the Ministry of Education and Training , of all the graduation exams this year, only Literature is an essay subject, the remaining subjects are multiple choice. The Ministry of Education and Training invited a team of independent experts to analyze the score distribution based on data from the Departments of Education and Training.

Speaking at the conference announcing the 2025 graduation score distribution, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duc, Chairman of the Council of the University of Technology (Vietnam National University, Hanoi ) said, "surprised" because this year's score distribution did not fluctuate too much and had differentiation, suitable for university admission.

In addition, he appreciated Hanoi's presence in most rankings because this year is the first time Hanoi has reached the top of most rankings.

Commenting on the "stunningly beautiful" English score distribution this year, Professor Dinh Duc said that although candidates and parents initially reacted because the test was too difficult, the final results proved the reasonableness of the test. This year, the test was much more difficult due to the change from A2 to B1 output standards, but the average score was still 5.38. That shows that the candidates' ability has improved significantly.

On the other hand, according to Professor Duc, this year English is an elective subject, so the students who registered for this subject are all strong candidates and have been invested in the right direction. In the list of 10 provinces and cities with the highest average English scores, Hanoi is the first to lead this top, followed by Ho Chi Minh City, Quang Ninh, Dien Bien , Phu Tho, Hai Phong, Nghe An, Ninh Binh, Ha Tinh and Thanh Hoa.

Representing teachers and managers at high school level, Ms. Nguyen Boi Quynh, Principal of Viet Duc High School, said that with foreign language exams like this year, we think that teaching subjects in schools needs to change, students need to be able to use the language.

"We cannot just teach grammar but need to equip students with all four skills," Ms. Quynh emphasized.

This year, in addition to announcing the score distribution, for the first time the Ministry of Education and Training announced the exam score data of localities, ranking the top 10 provinces and cities based on two criteria including average subject score and 10 points.

For example, in Mathematics, Ninh Binh is the leading locality with the highest average score of 5.04; followed by Hanoi with 5.03; Hai Phong with 5.1… Hanoi is also the locality with the highest number of candidates scoring 10 on the exam with 93 papers. However, this ministry has only listed localities with high average scores, many scores of 10, but has not announced the top localities with low scores to look directly at the quality of teaching.

The English score spectrum is no longer saddle-shaped.

Professor Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) said that this year's exam has demonstrated classification through the score spectrum.

With the change in the exam, only Math and Literature are required, the remaining 2 subjects are chosen by candidates according to their interests and best abilities. Therefore, he affirmed that the exam has a clear classification compared to last year.

Professor Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) spoke at the Conference on the afternoon of July 15.

Regarding English, Professor Ha said that this year is the first year following the 2018 General Education Program with the required output results reaching level B1, level 3/6 and this is a requirement that has changed compared to before.

“We see that the saddle-shaped phenomenon is no longer present, which is a very encouraging sign. Another thing shown in the exam score distribution is that although the number of candidates has decreased, it shows that the quality of candidates taking the exam has increased,” according to Professor Ha.

In Math, in 2024 there were no 10s nationwide, in 2023 there were 12 10s and the score spectrum was very strongly skewed to the right.

In 2025, the increase in the number of 10 points shows that the exam is well classified and it is necessary to recognize the number of more than 500 exams with a score of 10 corresponding to more than 1.1 million candidates taking the exam.

Graduation rate reached 99.21%

Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong stated that the reason for the first time the Ministry of Education and Training held a conference to announce the score distribution of the High School Graduation Exam subjects was because it was the first year of the exam following the new program. The Ministry of Education and Training invited education experts to analyze the score distribution, and high school teachers to give comments to ensure objectivity.

Mr. Thuong affirmed that, up to this point, the exam has been successfully organized, ensuring 3 goals including: Graduation assessment, assessment of 12 years of study of students; and being a reliable database for university admission.

“This year’s exam is much more difficult and challenging than previous years because it is the first year that teaching results are evaluated based on student capacity. The national high school graduation rate is 99.21%,” according to Mr. Thuong.

The Deputy Minister of Education and Training also talked about the advantages of the exam, which is to ensure career orientation and help students develop their qualities and abilities through choosing subjects. The assessment has changed from testing knowledge learned and memorized to assessing abilities, but students have made great efforts, changed their state, and teachers have made efforts to teach, although there was some anxiety when changing the examination method.

According to Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong: "We should not be too concerned about scores of 9 and 10. We need to gradually abandon the mindset of evaluating scores, even though they are quantitative numbers, they are only one of the parameters, not all."

In the General Education Program at the high school level, students are allowed to choose their favorite subjects to develop their full potential and qualities to take the exam later. With this year's exam, the graduation exam regulations and the admission regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training for the first time have been directed towards students and towards real learning results, real results, and real talents as directed.