MOET has issued a circular amending and supplementing several regulations on the assessment of primary, secondary and high school students. The circular will take effect on December 1.

Under the new regulations, the ministry assigns provincial and municipal Departments of Education and Training responsibility for leading the development, review and provision of common periodic tests to educational institutions in their areas for selected subjects to be assessed by numerical scores. 

Schools must be notified in advance, and the tests must be administered at the end of the first semester and the school year for fifth-graders, and at the end of both semesters for ninth- and 12th-graders.

Thai Van Tai, head of the Ministry of Education and Training’s Department of General Education, said large-scale testing and assessment aim to improve education management and ensure that student assessments become increasingly objective and fair, accurately reflecting the actual quality of teaching and learning.

Common tests will give the education sector an additional basis for comparing results across educational institutions, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and pinpointing issues that require attention during curriculum implementation. 

“On that basis, management authorities can provide more targeted guidance, while schools and teachers will have additional information to adjust teaching and learning activities and support students in ways suited to their abilities and individual progress,” Tai said.

Tai said effective quality management requires sufficiently reliable information, mechanisms for comparison and oversight, and the timely detection of unusual signs. 

It also requires addressing the pursuit of the so-called ‘achievement disease’ and preventing unauthorized interference that distorts academic results.

“The ministry’s position is that large-scale testing and assessment should provide an additional basis for management and help improve education quality. We must not chase scores, create unnecessary pressure or allow the pursuit of achievements to distort educational goals,” Tai said.

Tai said strengthening objectivity, fairness and substantive assessment is one of the key requirements of current education reform. 

“It is important to understand that the goal of Circular No. 89/2026/TT-BGDĐT is not merely to address ‘grade inflation,’ but, more broadly, to improve the quality of education management, ensure that assessment results accurately reflect students’ levels of achievement, and support the teaching and learning process,” he said.

If assessment results do not accurately reflect students’ abilities and progress, Tai said, it will be difficult to identify areas where they are struggling, adjust teaching methods and provide appropriate support. Biased or inaccurate results may also undermine fairness among students and educational institutions, weakening public confidence in education quality.

“Therefore, common periodic tests in selected subjects and grades will provide an additional basis for comparison and analysis. This will help management authorities and schools identify signs that warrant further examination, but differences in results must not automatically be treated as evidence of grade inflation or violations. Any unusual signs must be objectively verified using data and appropriate review procedures,” Tai said.

However, Tai noted that addressing the pursuit of ‘superficial achievement’ disease cannot depend solely on common tests or a single technical solution. 

A coordinated approach is needed, including reforming teaching and learning methods, improving assessment quality, strengthening the accountability of school leaders, making procedures and results transparent, using data to detect unusual patterns, and strictly handling deliberate attempts to distort results.

“It is also important to emphasize that substantive assessment does not mean focusing solely on scores or making tests more difficult. Assessment should help students understand what they have achieved, where they still have shortcomings and how they need to keep improving. Students who face difficulties must receive support to make progress, rather than being labeled or mechanically compared with their peers.

“The ultimate goal is not to make scores higher or lower, but to ensure that scores and comments truthfully reflect learning outcomes; that every student is assessed fairly, receives support to improve and develops in line with their abilities,” Tai said.

MOET’s new rule has been applauded by general school leaders. They believe that common test papers will eliminate the issue of every school setting its own standard. Currently, since exam questions are different, the student assessment cannot be implemented on the same basis. And the problem will be solved with the new regulation.

Thanh Hung