VietNamNet Bridge - Teachers and students complain they only have eight months ahead to prepare for the 2017 high-school finals.

Soon after the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) announced the plan for the finals, high schools have had to begin preparing for the exam. 

The most significant change of the 2017 finals is that students will have multiple-choice exam questions for all exam subjects, except literature.

Students will have five tests, including math, literature, foreign languages, natural sciences (physics, chemistry and biology) and social sciences (history, geography and citizen education).

Teachers and students complain they only have eight months ahead to prepare for the 2017 high-school finals.

Nguyen Pham Dai, headmaster of Tan Binh High School, said it was a big challenge for the school’s teachers who still did not have experience in composing multiple-choice questions.

Le Van Linh, headmaster of Thanh Binh High School, complained that teachers only have eight months to help students prepare for their most important exam in their lives.

MOET once faced strong opposition from the public when deciding to raise multiple-questions for many exam subjects, especially mathematics. The Vietnam Mathematics Association protested against the idea, saying that multiple-choice questions won’t encourage students’ creativity in solving questions. 

However, MOET still insisted on multiple-choice questions.

Huynh Trong Phuc, headmaster of Nguyen Cong Tru High School, said MOET was late in announcing the big changes of the exam, leaving little time for students and teachers to prepare.

Headmaster of Thai Binh High School Le Thuy Hoa also complained the exam policy is ‘as changeable as the weather’. 

Just some months ago, teachers heard that local education departments and universities will host high-school finals and university entrance exams themselves. 

But MOET finally decided that a national high-school final exam will be organized.

Phuc said teachers will still give lessons in the traditional way to provide students with necessary knowledge, and will practice with multiple-choice questions to help them become familiar with the new type of questions.

“If we give lessons with multiple-choice questions, students won’t be interested in learning and they will tick the answers at random,” he explained. 

Hoa warned that with multiple-choice questions, even students with good knowledge may not be able to obtain high scores if they don’t have reasonable methods to solve questions.