The number of seats for 10th classes in state owned high schools this year is expected to decrease by 1,100 in HCM City, while the number of students finishing secondary schools is expected to increase by 4,300.

This means that 17,000 students, after finishing secondary schools, will not be able to follow their study at state owned high schools.

The figure proves to be the highest in the last few years, as the city’s education and training department has decided to cut 1,100 seats in the enrolment plan to state owned high schools (it was 58,157 last year), while the number of students finishing secondary schools will increase by 4,300.

Nguyen Van Ngai, Deputy Director of the HCM City Education and Training Department, said that the department does not want to limit the number of students to state owned schools. The problem is that more students will finish secondary school this year, while the city does not have newly built high schools.

Under the current regulations, each of class needs to have no more than 45 students in order to ensure the quality of education and training. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the number of students to be enrolled to state owned high schools.

According to the education and training department, in 2009, besides Binh Chanh, Cu Chi, Can Gio, Hoc Mon and district 9, two other districts, including district 2 and Thu Duc will enroll students directly after considering students’ capability (students do not have to take exams to be enrolled to the schools). However, this does not mean that all the students finishing secondary schools can be automatically enrolled to the high schools in the districts.

Ngai said that the capability of high schools in the districts will decide how many students to be enrolled. However, he said that the ratio of students to be received by the state owned schools in the districts will not be lower than 80% of secondary school graduates.

Meanwhile, the students in 17 districts will have to take exams to be enrolled into state owned high schools, which will decide who will be among the 17,000 students who will not the opportunity to study at state owned schools.

Ngai has advised students and their parents to think carefully before deciding which high schools they should apply for. It happened in previous years that a lot of students failed to be enrolled in to state owned high schools, though they got high marks in the exams. The problem was that the students applied for the schools which required very high marks in the exams. Ngai said that if students think carefully and register to the schools which fit their learning capability, they will have high opportunities to study at state owned schools.

VietNamNet/NLD