Dr. Le Viet Khuyen, vice chair of the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges, said the country should not abandon a policy that has been studied and implemented for years simply because of several cases of misconduct.

“The biggest thing to avoid right now is changing direction halfway through. What matters is not changing the exam model, but continuing to improve it so that the results are reliable enough for both high school graduation and university admissions,” Khuyen said.

Tran Trung Hieu of Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted in Nghe An also said the country should not hold two separate exams simply because of a few cases of misconduct, as doing so would place additional burdens on students and parents and increase costs for society. 

Instead, he said, authorities should identify solutions to address and minimize the problems exposed by those cases.

However, Hieu said that to separate two goals, schools and local authorities could be tasked with determining high school graduation eligibility, while resources could be focused on a single university entrance exam organized by universities.

“Though regulations governing the high school graduation exam are already in place, cases of cheating still occur during exam administration. 

The Ministry of Education and Training needs decisive measures to close those loopholes in future exams. The fundamental solution is to revise the high school graduation exam regulations. 

“A specific and effective measure to prevent cheating in exam rooms would be to install security cameras that are not connected to the internet, allowing authorities to monitor exams and conduct post-exam reviews,” Hieu proposed.

Dr. Le Truong Tung, a respected educator, said the high school graduation exam not only determines whether students graduate but also helps education authorities assess the quality of teaching across localities and regions, allowing them to decide where investment and support are most needed.

According to Tung, most universities currently use high school graduation exam scores as a major criterion for admissions. He proposed maintaining a single nationwide exam while establishing independent testing centers.

Tung said a common exam could still be maintained under a “two-in-one” model. The exam would have two sections: the first would assess basic knowledge for high school graduation, while the second would have a higher level of differentiation for university admissions and would be scored separately. 

Students who do not intend to apply to university would not have to take the second section.

Under this model, MOET would focus on establishing and managing high-quality testing centers, while universities would use scores from the admissions section to select students. Tung said these centers could build on the testing experience of Vietnam National University, Hanoi and Vietnam National University, HCMC.

For high school graduation, Tung proposed testing only around 30 percent of students in each province, mainly those with weaker academic performance, rather than all students. He said this approach could still provide a basis for assessing education quality across localities while significantly reducing the resources required to administer the exam.

Computer-based testing

Khuyen said the root cause of misconduct remains exam procedures that rely too heavily on human involvement. The solution is to gradually shift to computer-based testing using a standardized question bank.

When questions are randomly selected by software from a standardized question bank and answers are automatically graded immediately after students finish, many stages vulnerable to misconduct, such as printing and distributing exam papers, anonymizing answer sheets, and manual grading, could be eliminated.

“Each student would receive a different test version while still ensuring an equivalent level of difficulty. In that case, invigilators would only be responsible for supervision and technical support and would not be able to interfere with students' results,” Khuyen said.

The head of the training department at a university in Hanoi said the issue is not whether to hold one or two exams, but how to ensure fairness and strict compliance with regulations.

The official said the solution is to accelerate the transition to computer-based testing. When the entire test-taking process is conducted on computers and all exam rooms are monitored by cameras, the possibility of interference with results would be significantly reduced.

Thanh Hung - Thuy Nga