Without the 6th grade exam, how can schools "seal the sand to find gold" with thousands of report cards with 10 points?

The Ministry of Education and Training has just issued a circular on the Regulations on Admissions to Secondary and High Schools. Accordingly, from 2025, Secondary Schools will only be admitted by selection in order to reduce administrative procedures.

For secondary schools and general schools with many levels of education, including secondary schools belonging to universities, colleges, and research institutes, the admission criteria are directly managed by the university, college, or research institute or are implemented according to the instructions of the Department of Education and Training where the school is located.

The Ministry of Education and Training said: "The spirit of the new circular is to reduce the pressure of transfer exams for primary school students, so even private schools or high-quality schools will consider admission in a uniform manner without entrance exams."

According to this circular, high-quality schools and "hot" private schools in Hanoi with competition ratios of up to 1/10, even 1/15, will also have to consider admission.

After the circular was issued, on the morning of January 9, the Admissions Council of Doan Thi Diem Secondary School announced that it would temporarily stop accepting applications for admission to grade 6 for the 2025-2026 school year until it receives instructions on implementing the circular from the Hanoi Department of Education and Training and the Nam Tu Liem Department of Education and Training. The Admissions Council will notify parents as soon as there is a plan to adjust the admission method to ensure the rights of all students wishing to apply to the school.

Previously, according to the enrollment announcement for the 2024-2025 school year, the school accepted applications for grade 6 from January 9 to April 10, 2025. The school has classes to enhance English, literature - English, math, math - English, math - IT, French, Japanese - English, Chinese - English, along with high-quality Cambridge dual-diploma and American bilingual classes. Candidates registering for the school will take the competency assessment test in April.

Currently, some schools have announced enrollment for grade 6, and have even finished recruiting talented students like the Newton School System.

Hanoi Star School has scheduled the recruitment of talented students through a 6th grade scholarship exam to take place on February 23. Ms. NKH - a parent whose child is applying to this school said: "When the media reported on Circular 30 which said that 6th grade admission would be based on selection and no entrance exam, I was very worried. What criteria would be used for admission and currently my child has finished the first semester of 5th grade, and there is no preparation for the admission exam."

This female parent said that on the afternoon of June 8, she called the school hotline and the school's admissions department said that the entrance exam schedule for grade 6 was still February 23 and there was no change. However, the school's recalculation and change of admission method according to the new circular could also happen, making parents feel like they are "sitting on fire", holding their breath waiting.

At the Archimedes Education System, a school leader said that because the new circular has just been announced, the school has not yet made any decisions and needs time to discuss and recalculate.

“In recent years, the school has always had entrance exams for grade 6 to assess students’ abilities to select excellent students. Obviously, if students are recruited by selection, they can only be considered based on their academic records, the most difficult part is those with all 10s. Even if there are thousands of beautiful 10s, knowing which students to reject and which ones to accept is very difficult for schools,” he said.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Tung, Principal of Lomonosov MV Secondary and High School, said: "The school is waiting for instructions. The Department of Education and Training will provide instructions on how to implement them to ensure consistency in the city."

With the same perfect score profiles, according to Mr. Tung, schools will usually add bonus points, extra points for students who win competitions or other secondary criteria.

At Luong The Vinh Secondary and High School (Hanoi), Ms. Van Thuy Duong, Vice Principal of the school, said: “The first principle of admission according to the new circular is to ensure safety, objectivity, fairness and seriousness, which will be difficult to achieve by applying the principle of only considering admission for all public and private schools. Public opinion has been overwhelmed many times by thousands of transcripts with perfect scores and forced to add additional criteria for admission.”

Ms. Duong believes that while there is no tool to ensure that the assessment of primary education quality (tests, academic records) of schools is objective, serious, and fair, forcing both public and private schools to only recruit students based on academic records is a risk.

And according to her, only considering admission can increase the situation of asking for points, giving points, and beautifying academic records, and also create exams to get certificates according to "secondary criteria", creating prize races to get extra points for admission to grade 6.

Recalling the year 2015 - when 6th graders were not admitted through entrance exams, Ms. Duong said that there were students who were admitted through secondary criteria such as participating in swimming or chess certificates. However, after entering the school, students who won chess prizes could not even make a single move...

According to Ms. Duong, to promote the development of private education, enrollment must be a breakthrough and private schools should be allowed to freely enroll students according to the professional criteria of competent authorities, as well as ensuring requirements on facilities and teaching staff.