Following instructions by the Hanoi Education and Training Department, secondary schools in Hanoi have begun enrolling students based on their learning records and achievements at primary school. They are not allowed to select students through entrance exams under any form.
However, it has been difficult to select students because as Associate Professor Van Nhu Cuong, chair of the Luong The Vinh School, said, “Vietnamese students are too excellent”.
Cuong asked his officers to check 400 school reports of the students who have applied for the sixth grade. To his surprise, 100 of the 400 students, or 25 percent, had the highest possible score of 100.
Cuong said that over 4,000 students have applied for sixth grade of the school. This means that over 1,000 students got a 100 score. Meanwhile, the school can receive no more than 600 students for its sixth grade.
“I don’t know what to do now. The education department prohibits schools from organizing secondary school entrance exams,” he said.
If more than 1,000 students obtain 100/100 scores as predicted, the school may have to consider students’ other achievements to decide admissions.
For example, the scores students received in the fourth and fifth grades would be considered.
But what will happen if the students have nearly the same scores for English? There is still no answer.
A high school teacher in Hanoi said the Luong The Vinh School situation was not a surprise to him at all.
“You may hear that over 90 percent of students in many schools in large cities finished the 2014-2015 academic year as excellent students,” he said.
“Therefore, it is understandable why Luong The Vinh School complains there are too many excellent students to select,” he added.
Hanoi’s parents are now concerned about whether their children can enroll in the schools they want.
Nguyen Thi Kim Anh, headmaster of the Cau Giay Secondary School, said that it would be very difficult for secondary schools to enroll students if they just considered students’ school reports.
Anh said his school would give priority to students who won prizes at the competitions for excellent students organized by the city or national competitions. It would also consider the students’ learning records in the first, second, third and fourth grades.
Nguyen Tat Thanh School, an arm of the Hanoi University of Education, plans to enroll 240 students in the sixth grade. Meanwhile, it has decided to admit 162 students who have outstanding learning records. This would leave only 78 seats.