Educators have rung the alarm bell over the imbalance in university training. Excellent students now do not want to study social science majors, leaving schools unable to enroll enough students.

Students turn their back to social science studies

The number of students taking entry exams to social science majors has been decreasing dramatically in recent years. In 2008, the HCM City University of Social Sciences and Humanities under the HCM City National University received 17,466 applications for social science majors. the figures dropped to 12,947 in 2009 and 12,752 in 2010. This is reflected in the steadily decreasing competition ratio . In 2008, one student had to compete with 6.26 other students in order to obtain a place at social science schools, while it dropped to 4.62 in 2009 and then to 4.55 in 2010.

According to the Hanoi Education and Training Department, in 2010, the number of applications for university entrance exams in group C (students have to take literature, history and geography exams) amounted to just 5.2 percent of total applications. Meanwhile, the percentage of students registered to take A group exam (mathematics, physics and chemistry) was very high, at 55.4 percent. 21.5 percent of the applications were registered for taking D group exam (literature, mathematics and foreign languages) and B group exam (mathematics, chemistry and biology).

The representative agency of the Ministry of Education and Training in HCM City also said that that in 2010, the agency received 24,000 applications, but there were only 1200 applications for sitting C group exams. Meanwhile, the figures were much higher for A group (14,000), B group and D1 group (4000 for each). Especially, the number of applications for C group dropped by a half from 2009.

Since students nowadays are not interested in following social science studies, schools have to lower their requirements.

The HCM City University of Social Sciences, for example, required only 14 points from the university entrance exams for 16 majors. The average score of the examinees of the school was also the lowest among the schools also belonging to the HCM City National University.

As many students nowadays refuse to read social science studies, many schools complain that they cannot enroll enough students for some subjects. In 2006-2010, for example, the HCM City University of Social Sciences never got enough students for Philosophy. Meanwhile, the library-information major could only enroll enough students in 2008, and German philology could only enroll 45 percent of students needed in 2009.

What to do to change students’ mind?

Dr Nguyen Duc Nghia, Deputy President of the HCM City National University, thinks that students who study social sciences never get high scores in the university entrance exams, because most of them are from rural areas.

Every year, there are 100,000 students attending C group exams, or 10 percent of the total students. Of this amount, only 3000 students come from big cities, while the other 7000 come from rural areas.

many students of social science schools admit that they do not actually want to study social sciences, but they have just because they failed the exams to natural science schools.

THV, a student at the international relations faculty, said that she failed the exams to the city’s architecture school. “Many friends of mine also do not want to follow social science studies, because it is very difficult to find jobs with these majors.”

Dr Doan Le Giang, Dean of the Literature and Philology Faculty, also said that in the minds of students and their parents, social sciences are “second class” subjects. That explains why very few excellent students choose to study these majors. Giang has expressed his worry about the quality of the graduates of social science majors. “Once the quality of input students is low, the quality of graduates cannot be high,” he said.

Source: Tien phong