VietNamNet Bridge - In 2015, the national high school finals, the first 2-in-1 national exam was organized in Vietnam instead of two separate ones – high school finals and university entrance exam – as part of education reform in Vietnam.

 

1.More than 1 million high school students attended the finals organized on July 1-4, 2015 at 99 exam centers, each of which gathered 20,000-30,000 examinees.

Every student had 4 exam subjects at minimum, including 3 compulsory subjects – math, literature and foreign languages and one optional (physics, chemistry, biology, history and geography).

91.58 percent of high school students passed the finals, the lowest result in the last four years (97.63 percent in 2012, 97.52 percent in 2013 and 99.02 percent in 2014).

2. The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has a new national educational system under which general school students would have compulsory & optional subjects (at present, all subjects are compulsory), while the time for higher education would be shortened from 4-6 years to 3-4 years.

The general education would be designed to focus on eight fields – linguistics and literature; math; morality & citizenship lessons; physical education; social sciences; natural sciences and technology & informatics.

The general education would be designed to focus on eight fields – linguistics and literature; math; morality & citizenship lessons; physical education; social sciences; natural sciences and technology & informatics.

3.The government in September 2015 released Decree No 73 on university training establishment classification and accreditation.

Universities will be classified into three groups – research-oriented schools, application-based schools and practice-based schools.

The ranking of university training establishments will be made based on training & research scale as well as training & research quality.

4. In late November 2015, the National Assembly approved the Resolution on renovating the curriculum and textbooks for general education. The resolution says history will be maintained as a compulsory separated learning subject.

Prior to that, a hot debate was raised among scholars as MOET planned to integrate history to form up a new learning subject – citizens & the fatherland.

MOET thought that the integration would help ease the overload on students. However, its intention faced strong opposition from historians and teachers.

5.  National Television VTV on November 20, 2015, Vietnamese Teachers’ Day, launched VTV7, the national education channel on a trial basis. This is a specific television channel on education which aims to help students throughout the country to learn all subjects through television and encourage people’s study all their lives.

6. Vietnamese students gained brilliant achievements at international competitions in 2015.

Vietnamese students who attended seven Olympiads got 12 gold medals (32.43 percent), 16 silver medals and six bronze medals. 

In May 2015, OECD released the ranking of global education showing that Vietnam ranks 12th, above many developed countries.

The ranking was made based on the assessment of 15-year-old students’ abilities in math, reading comprehension and sciences.


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