Vietnam’s New University Enrolment Rules Cause More Troubles than Solutions

The Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) this year decided to combine the high school graduation exam and university entrance exam into one holistic test on hope of easing test-taking pressure and saving money and time for those involved. However, the move led to a new university enrolment process that is even more stressful and inefficient than before, local media reported today from the chaotic scene of local college admission. This year, more than one million students registered for the combined exam. 72% of the test-takers wanted to use the exam results for enrolment into a university or college, which decides its accepted floor score and enrolment quota separately. However, under the new rules, students are allowed to change their schools of desire from August 1st till the evening of August 20, the final day of the first admission round, which means that schools themselves do not know how many prospective students have confirmed their seats, and thus, cannot fix the cut-off score until the end of the first phase. What resulted was hundreds of students and parents waiting impatiently around university campuses in big cities until the very final moment to timely withdraw their applications and apply to another option in the second enrolment round. Van Nhu Cuong, a well-known associate professor and chairman of the Luong The Vinh School’s board of directors, said the new process was supposed to save students’ time, effort and expense, but it failed to do so. Several reasons were cited from education experts to account for this failure, such as the MoET’s simpleminded reasoning in holding a big national test that overlooked the necessary software infrastructure. Universities in fact have no control over the exact enrolment standards other than setting a floor score upon which students can base on to determine their qualification. A professor at Banking University of Ho Chi Minh City noted that the whole process only encourages students to care more about getting into college instead of learning for themselves, a problem that is only compounded with each exam season. Vietnam, which now has about three million students at 700 universities, colleges and vocational training schools, is known for its Confucian-style rote learning and exam-intensive education system. Although the government has received significant foreign aid, estimated at over $2 billion between 1993 and 2012, to conduct education and training projects, the human resources quality remains poor, failing to prepare a skilled workforce for a growing economy. (Vietnamnet Aug 19, tuoitrenews.com Aug 20, Thanh Nien – Young People Aug 20)