VietNamNet Bridge - The number of students registering to attend state-owned high schools in 2015, not including schools for the gifted, was 10,000 higher than last year. 

According to the Hanoi Education Department, state-owned high schools will receive about 56,000 students this year, satisfying only 60-70 percent of demand. 

Some top high schools, Kim Lien, Phan Dinh Phung, Yen Hoa and Le Quy Don, have announced competition ratios at 1:2.5-1:3. Meanwhile, one examinee will have to compete with five for a seat at Chu Van An High School.

The Hanoi Education and Training Department has confirmed that the high competition has put pressure on examinees this year, even though the department has allowed some schools in the city to enroll 5-10 percent students more.

Khoi, a 9th grader at Marie Curie School, said he had been warned by teachers that this year’s exam would be tougher than previous years. 

“I have to learn hard to prepare for the exam,” he said. “I have private tutoring hours from early in the morning till 9 pm every day. After 9 pm, I have to learn by myself until midnight,” he said.

A student at Giap Bat Secondary School said he leaves home for extra classes at 6 am and gets home at 9:30 pm.

Nguyen Van, a student at Giang Vo Secondary School, said he began reviewing for the high school entrance exam when he entered the ninth grade. He goes to school in the morning and spends the afternoon at extra classes.

According to Van, his classmates study more than he does. “They plan to sit the entrance exams to schools for the gifted, which always require very high exam scores,” he explained.

“Some of them even stopped going to school before the 2014-2015 academic year ended officially, so that they could spend more time on private tutoring lessons,” he said.

“In general, they prefer to have private tutoring lessons with the teachers from exam preparation centers to teachers from their secondary schools,” he said.

Kim Anh, a student in Ba Dinh District, said she had applied for a “mid-tier school”, and does not feel too much pressure. Meanwhile, a friend of hers, who wants to study at the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, the most desirable school in the city, has to study day and night.

The headmaster of a school in Hanoi said that the high number of examinees this year was foreseeable. The students were born 14 years ago in the year of Dragon, which mothers believed an auspicious year.

Van Chung