VietNamNet Bridge – Twenty percent of the most excellent students would automatically finish high school without having to attend finals under a Ministry of Education and Training’s plan.

MOET is programming a lot of changes to the high school finals, which, if implemented, is believed to make a breakthrough in the exam mechanism. From 2014, students would have four compulsory exam subjects instead of six as currently, while foreign language would be an optional exam subject.

The ministry has also decided that 20 percent of total high school students would be exempted from the final examination. This would help ease the pressure on students and help save money.

“The 20 percent of excellent students, if attending the finals, will surely pass the exams. Therefore, it would be better to allow them to skip the exams to be able to cut down 20 percent of exam rooms and other expenses,” explained Deputy Minister Nguyen Vinh Hien.

MOET, for the last many years, has been criticized as “conservative” because it has been insisting on the necessity of the high school final exams, which cost a lot of money, time and relevant agencies’ efforts.

Some analysts once suggested removing the final exams in order to help cut down unnecessary expenses, thus allowing to allocate budgeting for other more necessary things.

However, the ministry’s plan on the exam exemption for 20 percent of students has not been applauded by schools.

Nguyen Thi Hang Nga from Hoai Duc B High School in Hanoi said she got embarrassed on hearing that there would be the students who don’t have to attend finals.

“Why 20 percent? MOET explains that the 20 percent comprises of the most excellent students. But I am sure that we won’t have so many excellent students,” she said, adding that her class has only five excellent students only, or 10 percent of the total students, though this is the class of selected good students.

“If MOET thinks that no need to force the students who are sure of passing the finals, to attend the exams, then the exemption should be applied to the majority of students who have good learning capability,” she maintained.

Professor Van Nhu Cuong, Headmaster of Luong The Vinh High School, also said he cannot understand why the same proportion of 20 percent of students to be exempted from exams is applied to all localities nationwide.

Meanwhile, the learning capability of students varies which can be seen in the statistics. Nam Dinh province, had over 90 percent of students passing the finals last year, while only 70-80 percent of students in Dien Bien and Lai Chau provinces passed the exams.

Pham Ha Thanh from Le Quy Don High School in Ha Dong district of Hanoi, has warned that the ministry’s decision would “encourage bribery”.

Since excellent students don’t have to attend the finals to finish high schools, it would happen that they would give bribes to teachers for high marks and high learning records.

According to Thanh, there are two ways to follow, either MOET removes the final exam as suggested, or 100 percent of students have to attend the exams.

Thanh Mai