The political boundary between the former Ha Tay province and Hanoi city has been removed as Ha Tay has become a part of the expanded Hanoi, but the difference in education quality still exists.

Thang went on to say that he has found out that in the region, only 450 students graduated from secondary school, while 27 students failed the final exams.

Nguyen Thi Hoa, Deputy Headmaster of Van Tao High School in Thuong Tin district, said sadly that students just need to get more than zero to be eligible to be accepted by the high school.

“Even though we set the required marks at such a low level, we still cannot enroll enough students,” Hoa said.

Headmaster of Tran Hung Dao High School in Ha Dong district Nghiem Thi Nguyet Anh related that last year, 700 students took the exam to enter the school. Only 80 students failed to be enrolled in the school because they got zero on the exam, while the other 620 students were all accepted.

Pham Van Hoat, Headmaster of Dai Cuong High School in Ung Hoa district, said that he has enrolled enough students for seven classes so far, because two other schools which are located in more advantageous positions have attracted the majority of students, while Dai Cuong is 20 kilometres from the district’s centre, and therefore cannot lure students.

The big gap

According to the head of the Secondary Education Division under the Hanoi Education and Training Department Nguyen Thanh Ky, there is a big gap between the required marks set by schools in the former Hanoi and Ha Tay.

According to Ky, there are three reasons behind the existing gap: the quality of students finishing secondary schools, the skills of exam makers and changes in examination organisation.

Ky said that students in disadvantaged areas can only complete some exam questions due to limited knowledge.

Moreover, according to Ky, students in former Ha Tay have not ‘made appropriate investment’ in studying. Meanwhile, students in Hanoi have always been more enthusiastic about learning.

Many years ago, Ha Tay province did not organise high school entrance exams. Therefore, the students who passed the secondary school final exam automatically went on to high school. In the last two years, though entrance exam were organised, nearly all students who took them were accepted by high schools.

How to improve education quality?

According to Hoa from Van Tao School, the low quality of secondary school students is really a challenge for high schools. She said that with the present quality of students, high schools cannot turn them into good or excellent students.

However, Bui Van Trong, Headmaster of Ung Hoa B High School, still thinks that it is necessary to accept all students who want to go to high school. He said that if the students cannot go to state-owned schools, they will have to go to non-state schools, which will cost them a lot of money.

Le Thi Ha, a teacher of Quang Trung High School, related that in her classes, only 20-30 percent of students have average learning capacity, while the others have bad learning capacity. “I have to repeat the knowledge of primary and secondary schools, so that students can have enough knowledge to keep learning at high school,” she said.

However, though everyone well understands the problem, no one knows how to resolve it and improve the quality of education in the former Ha Tay province.

Bao Anh