Secondary school graduates will sit for high school entrance exams in 20 days; experts say the exams are no easier than university entrance exams.

Gearing up with intensive exam preparation classes

When schools finished the 2008-2009 academic year in mid May, secondary school graduates began preparing for the high school entrance exams. The majority of students registered to attend exam preparation classes at high schools, while many others registered for even more classes.

Ngoc Thu, a 9^th grade student at Phan Chu Trinh Secondary School in Hanoi, related that right after she finishes mathematics class at 11 am, she has to hurry up to make her literature class in the early afternoon. Thu does not have time to have lunch; therefore, she tries to eat something on the way to the literature class. Thu does not want to be late because she will not be able to find a seat.

Educators all affirm that students just need to review the knowledge they got at secondary schools to pass the high school entrance exams. However, no student is content to do this: They all want to study extra hard to get high marks on the entrance exams to be sure of seats at state-owned schools.

Phan Chu Trinh School reportedly collects 700,000 dong from every student for a training course preparing students for the mathematics and literature exams. Dong Da School collects 1 million from every student.

Students are also going to extra classes to learn with teachers from famous schools. Students in the classes have to pay 50-70,000 on average for every hour.

Students all know about the well-known class on Ho Dac Di street, in which students can study with a very famous mathematician from Chu Van An School. The classroom here is just 20 square metres, but there are 30 students.

Huyen Anh from Dong Da Secondary School, one of the students in the class, said: “We are afraid that the knowledge we got from our secondary school is not enough to get us into state-owned schools. Therefore, we have to attend many extra classes.”

In Da Nang city, the 16 state-owned schools began receiving applications for the schools on June 10. It is estimated that 14,000 students will sit for entrance exams, while there are only 9,780 seats. Students who fail the exams will have to study at private schools or continuing education centres.

Exam preparation centres heating up

In HCM City, exam preparation centres have been heating up as the demand from students has blown up.

Besides intensive classes, the centres also provide tutors to those who want to learn one-on-one with teachers. However, these classes always have sky high fees, at 120,000-150,000 dong an hour.

At Le Hong Phong High School, X.V, a student of Le Anh Xuan School, related that she had just finished her fourth lesson of the day, after which she would return home. After dinner, she will have to study again, because she needs to do English exercises to prepare for the English lesson early the next morning.

At the exam preparation centre at No 218 Ly Tu Trong in district 1, students who register for exam preparation classes are divided into two groups. Either they attend special classes to prepare for exams to enter gifted schools or normal classes to prepare for normal high school entrance exams.

Students not only try to fill their heads with knowledge, they also try to take practice tests to verify their knowledge. Huy Anh, a student of Giang Vo Secondary School, related that he has sat for two mock exams, for which he had to pay 10,000 dong each.

VietNamNet/TT