According to Cu Xuan Tien, head of the Admissions and Student Affairs Department at the University of Economics and Law, the increasing proportion of students graduating with good or excellent honors may reflect improvements in the quality of incoming students and greater initiative in learning.

However, weaknesses in assessment systems also need to be examined.

Tien explained that when coursework grades account for a large share of final marks but fail to distinguish clearly between students' abilities, attendance, presentations and group assignments can push up overall course grades, even when final examination results do not reflect the same level of achievement.

Policies allowing students to retake courses to improve their grades, use their higher marks when calculating cumulative grade point averages (GPAs), and select electives that are easier to score well in can also help improve their graduation classifications.

Student feedback mechanisms may create additional pressure on lecturers.

Those who grade strictly could receive less favorable evaluations, while generous grading may go largely undetected. Such incentives could undermine the rigor of academic assessment.

Generative artificial intelligence presents another challenge.

In courses assessed primarily through essays, group reports and take-home assignments, students can use AI tools to help complete their work.

If lecturers do not verify students' understanding, ability to apply knowledge or capacity to explain and defend their submissions, assessing each student's independent competence becomes difficult.

Other factors include examination question banks that are rarely updated, repeated examination questions and assessment methods introduced during online learning that have not been adequately reviewed.

These shortcomings can reduce the ability of examinations to distinguish between different levels of academic performance.

Tien also noted that differences in course structures and assessment methods can produce varying proportions of high grades across academic disciplines.

Programs relying heavily on essays, projects and group assignments assess students differently from those emphasizing quantitative subjects, written examinations or complex problem-solving.

If certain specialized courses experience an unusually high proportion of A grades without reviews, cross-marking or comparisons between classes, the cumulative GPAs of students across an entire major could be inflated.

Nevertheless, Tien cautioned against automatically assuming that high student grades indicate lenient marking.

Universities must also consider admission standards, class sizes and the characteristics of honors programs or English-taught courses.

He recommended analyzing course-level performance data, identifying unusually high grade distributions, standardizing examination questions and marking schemes, and introducing cross-marking where necessary.

When the proportion of graduates receiving good or excellent honors rises sharply, universities should determine whether the increase reflects stronger student performance or changes in assessment practices.

Thai Doan Thanh, vice rector of Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade, shared a similar view, saying that the proportion of graduates receiving high honors depends on several factors.

"The first factor is the field or major in which a university provides training. Generally speaking, economics, business and management programs tend to be less demanding than engineering and technology programs. When the coursework is less demanding, assessment also tends to be less demanding, resulting in higher academic scores," Thanh explained.

The second factor, he said, is students' actual academic ability.

At some universities, strong academic results genuinely reflect the exceptional capabilities of their students.

The third factor is the assessment system.

According to Thanh, credit-based education typically combines continuous assessment with end-of-course examinations.

High coursework grades can raise overall results, while students may also have opportunities to improve their marks if they are dissatisfied with their initial performance.

This differs from the previous academic-year system, under which students generally sat a single examination at the end of the year and had limited opportunities to improve their grades.

Grading scales and gaps in quality control

Nguyen Trung Nhan, head of the Academic Affairs Department at the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City, said the transition to credit-based education and a four-point GPA scale may have contributed to the growing proportion of graduates receiving good or excellent honors.

Under the four-point scale, students with GPAs of 3.2 or above are classified as good, while those with GPAs of at least 3.6 receive excellent honors.

On the 10-point scale, the corresponding thresholds are above 8 and above 9, respectively.

As a result, some students who have not achieved an average of 8 on the 10-point scale may still qualify for a good graduation classification after their grades are converted to the four-point scale.

However, changes in grading scales alone cannot explain the substantial increases recorded at some universities.

Other factors, including classification thresholds, grade conversion methods, course difficulty and assessment practices, must also be considered.

The head of academic affairs at another university suggested that some institutions may be motivated by a desire to help students graduate with strong academic records, improving their employment prospects.

At the same time, some universities have not adequately analyzed academic performance data to make timely adjustments to their assessment methods.

The official argued that universities should monitor results by semester, major and academic program.

When the proportion of high grades increases unusually quickly, institutions should review examination difficulty, marking practices and individual course requirements.

Graduation learning outcomes represent the minimum standards students must meet, but universities can establish higher requirements to distinguish different levels of competence.

Differences in admission scores between universities also raise questions about how graduation results should be compared.

Students can achieve outstanding academic results through sustained effort regardless of their admission scores.

Nevertheless, when the proportion of graduates receiving good or excellent honors rises sharply, universities must ensure their assessment systems can meaningfully distinguish between students' abilities.

According to education experts, the objective should not be to limit the number of students graduating with high honors.

Instead, universities must ensure that academic distinctions correspond to genuine competence.

Institutions should avoid pursuing impressive graduation statistics for their own sake, strengthen assessment quality control and ensure that university degrees accurately reflect both educational standards and graduates' actual capabilities.

Le Huyen