VietNamNet Bridge - Recent reports released by state management agencies have repeatedly warned about the increasingly high unemployment rate of university graduates. However, for most high school graduates, higher education is their priority.

A report shows that 946,064 students graduated from high school in 2013, while there were 1.7 million applications to take university entrance exams.

Each high school graduate registered to attend the exams for one to two universities. Many students were found attending entrance exams to two universities and one junior college.

The same report said that 871,935 12th graders will attend the 2-in-1 national exam. 

Of these, 279,001 students, or 30 percent, registered to attend the exam to finish high school, while 592,934 students will take the exam to finish high school and enter university.

Thus, 70 percent of Vietnamese 12th graders aim to attend university.

Surveys conducted by the HCM City Labor Department of 10,000  students in 19 districts in the city in 2012, 2013 and 2014 also show that high school graduates prefer going to university to vocational schools or working.

Thanh Nien cited surveys as reporting that in 2012 only 3.57 percent of students chose to go to intermediate school (two-year training) after finishing high school, while 96.4 percent of students wanted to go university (4-5 year training) or junior college (3-year training).

The figures were 6.69 percent and 93.41 percent in 2013, respectively, and 11 percent  and 89 percent in 2014.

Analysts, noting that the number of students wishing to go to university has decreased in the last few years, pointed out that the majority of students still want to follow higher education.

The 400 Vietnamese universities and junior colleges enroll 540,000 students every year. The figure coincides with a report by the Ministry of Education and Training that 500,000 students have passed the university entrance exams each year since 2010. 

Meanwhile, vocational schools and intermediate schools can fulfill less than 50 percent of their enrolment plans.

Nguoi Dua Tin quoted Tran Anh Tuan, director of the HCM City Human Resource Forecasting Center, as saying that one-third of the students, who failed the entrance university exams in the last few years, would rather repeat the exams the following years than go to vocational school.

Tran Anh Ngan, a parent in Hanoi, said following university education would be a must for her son.

“If my son fails the exam to a domestic school, I will enroll him in a school overseas,” she said.

Ngoc Kha