More than 75,000 students in Hanoi began the rigorous entrance exams for a place in the capital’s state-owned high schools in the academic year 2016-17, with literature being the first exam subject today.

The city’s state-owned schools offered only 53,000 seats this year, meaning that more than 25,000 students, 30 per cent of those competing, will have to go to more expensive private schools, said the Hanoi Education Department, adding that the number of students who registered for the exams was 4,000 lower than the previous year’s.

The high school entry examination has long been considered as stiff as the national university one. It includes tests in literature and maths.

Speaking about the literature exam, Le Ngoc Thao, a high-school candidate at the exam site of Chu Van An High School in the Ba Dinh District, said that the questions were not very difficult. Especially interesting was the question about young people’s responsibility for preserving national cultural identity, she said.

“Every young person should be aware of the national cultural identity and know how to preserve it while learning new things from other countries in the world. As we’ve usually said to each other - we integrate rather than dissolve,” Thao said.

Dang Nguyet Anh, a teacher at Hanoi-Amsterdam High School, one of the top schools for gifted students in Hanoi, said the question would yield high scores for those who managed to present their responsibilities.

She said it was a significant and vital question in these times.

Ngo Van Chat, head of the department’s Examination Quality Management Unit, said that the department had mobilised 10,000 supervisors for 154 exam sites in the city.

Those seeking seats at schools for gifted students will take additional tests on Thursday and Friday.

VNS