VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has consulted with junior colleges regarding the plan to remove the annual junior college entrance exams.

Students took the college entrance exam in 2008

According to the Higher Education Department, under MOET, December 5 is the deadline for junior colleges to send reports, expressing their viewpoints about MOET’s plan. By December 3, MOET had received opinions from 37 colleges, 70% of which said they agreed with the ministry’s plan.

Long said that even when separate exams are not organized, MOET will still set up a floor mark for colleges, which colleges will refer to when enrolling students.

However, the plan by MOET to remove the exams for junior colleges has caused surprise to many junior colleges. Some analysts have raised concern about how the examination questions should be designed, so as to fit both the students for universities and junior colleges. They said that MOET will have to restructure the exam questions, so as to allow the classification of students for the university and junior college education levels.

Meanwhile, Long believes that there is no need to make any major changes to the exam question structure. The questions will still need to be close to the high school curriculum and designed in a way that allows stronger students to stand out.

MOET has been trying to persuade junior colleges that the organization of only one examination, instead of two, will help them save money and time. More importantly, MOET said, this will help them minimize the number of ‘virtual candidates’ (the students, who register to take junior college exams, but do not take exams in reality, and the students who pass the entrance exams, but give up colleges, because they have already passed the exams to universities).

According to MOET, in the 2008 enrolment season, nearly 100 junior colleges did not organize exams, while enrolling students based on the results of the university entrance exams. If junior colleges agree to MOET’s plan, the junior college entrance exam removal will be applied to all junior colleges nationwide.

Also according to MOET, only 67% of registered students took the junior college entrance exams.

Worries still exist

In fact, MOET’s plan to remove the junior college entrance exams has raised controversial arguments.

There are several reasons which have made some colleges disagree with the plan.

First, when organizing exams, junior colleges are able to enroll students who really have a willingness to study at the colleges. Meanwhile, if the exams are not organized, junior colleges will only be able to enroll the students, who do not really want to study at the colleges, and who register to study there only because they failed the entrance exams to universities.

Second, and more importantly, junior colleges will not be able to take initiative in their enrolment plan, while they have to wait for the university entrance exams’ results.

(Source: VnMedia)