Ministry of Education reconsiders using IELTS instead of exam scores

The information was given by Mr. Chuong at the conference to summarize and deploy the new school year in quality management and inspection and examination with the Departments of Education and Training.

According to him, foreign language certificates such as IELTS and TOEIC are one of the factors contributing to the integration process, but it is also necessary to re-evaluate the extent of using these results to replace high school graduation exam scores in foreign languages.

"Certainly the Ministry's upcoming circular will discuss this further," said Mr. Chuong.

In the past 5 years, international language certificates, especially English, have been popular in admissions. Currently, these certificates are mainly used for exemption from high school graduation exams and university admissions.

Specifically, the Ministry of Education and Training will consider exempting candidates from the foreign language exam and calculating the graduation score of 10 for candidates with an IELTS certificate of 4.0 or higher or equivalent. However, this is controversial, many teachers and students think it is unreasonable and unfair. This is the content that the Ministry will review as Mr. Chuong said above.

In university admissions, dozens of schools use IELTS, TOEFL... for admission. However, schools do not use the Ministry's exam exemption results but convert certificates according to their own scoring scale, combined with their transcript scores or high school graduation exam scores to calculate admission scores. This is under the authority of schools because they are autonomous in recruiting students according to the Law on Higher Education.

In addition, a few public high schools admit students directly or give them extra points for having a certificate.

For example, the English-enhanced 6th grade class in Ho Chi Minh City considers students who have achieved A2 certificate or higher according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​(CEFR) or equivalent. Students with IELTS or TOEFL certificates are considered for direct admission or priority points to 6th grade at Nam Tu Liem Secondary School (Hanoi) and Dang Thai Mai Secondary School (Nghe An).

Nghe An directly admits students with international English certificates to grade 10, Ha Tinh gives special provincial excellent student awards to students with IELTS 7.0 or higher. Other equivalent international language certificates are considered similarly.

Regarding the shortcomings in the management of international language exams and certificates, Mr. Chuong said that many localities have not been closely monitoring and have not properly implemented the regulations and instructions of the Ministry. This has led to many units having to postpone the IELTS exam and other international language certificates in September 2022, causing chaos and affecting the rights of test takers.