LookAtVietnam – The number of excellent students at many primary schools in the 2009-2010 school year was surprisingly high

The number of excellent students at many primary schools in the 2009-2010 school year was surprisingly high, a result blamed on the new system to appraise students.

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Tuoi Tre reporters attended the year-end ceremonies at some primary schools, reporting on long queues of students on stage waiting to get their awards for the title of “excellent student.” Only several students did not receive awards.

Most primary school headmasters agreed that the number of excellent students boomed this school year, just after they applied a new appraisal system.

Under the new mechanism, during lesson hours, teachers still give marks to students, but only to let parents know about their children’s performance and to let teachers know what they should do to help students. The primary school students must only take one test at the end of the school year, and only the test grade is used for ranking.

Educators believe that this produces too many excellent students. Minh Dao Primary School in HCM City last year had 80 percent excellent students last year, while it has 90.87 percent this school year. At Phan Dinh Phung Primary School in HCM City, excellent students last year numbered 60 percent, which jumped to 80.95 percent this school year. Hanh Thong Primary School excellent student numbers increased from nearly 80 percent to 85 percent.

Many schools reportedly have classes with 100 percent excellent students.

According to Tuoi Tre, the number of five grade students, who get a full 10 of 10 on mathematics and Vietnamese language year-end tests, is astonishingly high. One education sub-department reported 700/4000 students with 20/20 scores on their tests.

Commenting about the new system, a primary school headmaster explained that the biggest advantage is that it can produce many excellent students’, but admitted that this does not mean that they are really excellent.

“In the past, the number of excellent students was a minority, but now the number of average and bad students is the minority,” he noted, claiming that it is very difficult to find bad students nowadays.

Many parents emailed Tuoi Tre to complain that it is unfair to assess students through just one year-end test. One parent wrote that his son failed to obtain the title because he felt sick on the day of the end exam, but had received many good grades during the school year.

Source: Tuoi tre