News and Events

The Hanoi National University (HNU) has said it has successfully organized the key test to select best students. Educators have suggested applying the new exam model for national high school finals.

Every examinee was asked to pay VND100,000 as the exam fee. Examinees only had to spend one morning or afternoon to fulfill the test. Examinees worked with computers, and gave answers to multiple-choice questions.

They were informed about the exam results immediately. After that, they returned to their home villages. They did not have to stay in Hanoi for several days to attend university entrance exams as students had to in previous years.

This was an exam organized by one school to select students, not the national exam organized by the Ministry of Education and Training. 

HNU’s report showed that 72.8 percent of examinees received 70 out of 140 score or higher from the test.

With these advantages, the new exam model of HNU is believed to be good enough to be applied on a large scale in the country and at the high school finals.

Nguyen Phong Dien, head of the Training Division of the Hanoi University of Technology, noted that if the exam model can be applied to the national high school finals, this will revolutionize general education in Vietnam.

Dien, while emphasizing that this is the “exam model of the future”, noted that the model ensures objectivity and transparency as all necessary operations were made on computers.

However, some other educators remained cautious about the new model.

If the model is applied for the national exam, organizers would need one million computers for one million examinees, plus 10 percent of standby computers. This would raise technical problems.

Meanwhile, Le Huu Lap, Vice President of the Post and Telecommunication Institute of Technology, noted that with the exam model, HNU is not sure it can select best students this year.

With 45,000 examinees, 75 percent of whom got average marks or higher, HNU would find it hard to find the right students.

Many students may decide not to study at HNU even though they passed the exam and were selected by HNU.

Lap also noted that HNU may not be able to select the best students this year because the examinees have been preparing for the university entrance exam, i.e., the old exam model, for the last three years, since they entered high school. Therefore, they might not be able to show their real ability at the exam designed in a way they are not familiar with.