VietNamNet Bridge – The fact that hundreds of high school students in the former province of Ha Tay are almost assured of failing their final exams has rung the alarm bell over teaching quality in schools.

None in the group of ten students in 12A6 class who met Tien phong newspaper’s reporters passed the mock exam organised by the school one week ago. One boy said that if he failed the final exams, he would go work as a taxi motorbike driver, while a girl said she would get married.

“If we fail the final exams, we will not be able to take exams again next year, because the Ministry of Education and Training says there will not be another exam next year,” said Dao, another girl in the group.

When reporters asked which of the school’s classes were the worst, the deputy headmaster of the school could not give an answer immediately.

A teacher of English joined in the conversation, saying that 12A1, 12A2 and 12A3 seemed to be the best, while all the remaining were bad.

Hanh, the head teacher of 12A7 class, said, “Many students cannot read fluently when they enter 10^th grade. In mathematics, they cannot perform calculations with negative numbers. As a result, 23 students last year had to repeat 10^th grade. The other students were allowed to move up just because they were not too bad, not because they met the requirements,” Hanh said.

What are the problems?

In 2000, Luu Hoang High School in the former Ha Tay province was established after it was split from Luu Hoang Secondary and High School. At that time, the final exams were not the greatest concern of teachers and students at the school, as nearly all students, 99 or 100 percent, passed the exams.

However, the situation has become quite different since 2008, when the Ministry of Education and Training launched the movement of “saying ‘no’ to exam fraud and ‘achievement disease’ in education and training”. Last year, only 1/3 of the school’s students passed the final exams.

Nguyen Duc Vui, Deputy Head of the Secondary Education under the Hanoi Education and Training Department, said that in Ung Hoa, Chuong My and My Duc districts in the former province of Ha Tay, nearly all schools have low percentages of students passing final exams, including A-class schools which are located in central areas with high cultural standards.

A lot of reasons have been cited to explain the low percentages of students passing the high school final exams. Hop Thanh High School in My Duc district formerly did not have enough classrooms, forcing students to go to rented classrooms in two places, several kilometres from each other. This situation has only been remedied this year.

Meanwhile, Luu Hoang School complains that it is seriously lacking teachers. Two months ago, the school was given 18 teachers, but it still needs some ten more.

However, the main reason is the low capability of students. “Drastic measures need to be taken to settle the problem at the roots. Primary and secondary schools have to reconsider their teaching quality. Don’t send us students who do not have the requisite knowledge,” said the headmaster of one high school.

A teacher at Luu Hoang expressed the same sentiment: “The knowledge of a lot of students has gaps in it. After the high school entrance exams last year, 400 students were enrolled in high schools, most of whom got less than two marks on mathematics (of 10), while only 50 students got more than five marks. The enrolled students included ones who got 1.75 marks only for mathematics and literature,” she added.

Students just needed to get 1.75 marks to be able to study at Luu Hoang School. Meanwhile, students only had to get higher than a “0” to be able to study at Dai Cuong High School in Ung Hoa district. Even Ung Hoa A School, the best school in the district, only required students to get 5-6 points for mathematics and literature to enter the school.

VietNamNet/TP