Ministry of Education and Training announced many new points in the 2025 high school graduation exam

On the afternoon of March 28, at the conference on implementing the work of enrolling students at the beginning of the school year, organizing the high school graduation exam and evaluating the implementation of Circular No. 29/2024/TT-BGDDT, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) informed about some new points surrounding the 2025 High School Graduation Exam.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) informed about the 2025 High School Graduation Exam.

What will the exam be like this year?

Regarding the exam, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha - Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) said that the exam content closely follows the content of the current General Education Program for high school level, mainly the 12th grade program. The thinking level is 40% knowledge level, 30% understanding level and 30% application level. Strengthening the connection and application of knowledge and skills with reality, especially with differentiated content to properly assess students' abilities.

According to Mr. Ha, with these new points, teachers need to strengthen guidance for students to read and study on their own. Self-control and self-study are also among the three important general competencies mentioned in the 2018 General Education Program.

At the conference, Mr. Ha presented some new points in the organization of the exam. Regarding the organization of the high school graduation exam, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha said that one of the issues that the locality is worried about and often questions is the process of arranging the exam rooms.

The 2025 high school graduation exam will only be held in 3 sessions, and the third session will include both elective subjects. To facilitate the organization and the candidates, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha said that candidates will be arranged in a single exam room during the exam sessions and will not have to move around.

According to Deputy Director Nguyen Ngoc Ha, the 2025 High School Graduation Exam Regulations also clearly state that the graduation score calculation includes 50% of the graduation exam score and 50% of the score calculated from the 3-year study process of the students.

This is a fundamental change compared to previous exams, in line with the 2018 General Education Program, many abilities and qualities of students are developed during the learning process. Therefore, teachers need to review for students to increase connections, apply knowledge and skills to reality, practice, especially with differentiated content to properly assess students' abilities.

Increase from 24 to 48 codes

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha informed that even though one subject is tested at two different time slots, to ensure security, instead of only having 24 exam codes, the Ministry of Education and Training increased it to 48 exam codes.

Mr. Ha said that the Ministry requires collecting papers by exam room, not by subject: "We have conducted tests and simulated up to 5 different exam subjects in 1 exam room at two time slots, showing that it can still be handled."

Maintain 24 candidates/exam room, 1 exam room can arrange up to 5 subjects. To ensure security, instead of only 24 exam codes for 24 students in 1 exam room as before, this year's exam increased the number of exam codes to 48 for 2 time frames of the 3rd exam session.

Mr. Ha also informed that this year, the exam will be held simultaneously for students taking the exam according to the 2006 General Education Program (those who have not graduated, or are taking the exam to get university admission points) and students taking the exam according to the 2018 General Education Program. To avoid mistakes, it is necessary to arrange some separate exam sites for students taking the exam according to the 2006 Program.

With these technical changes, the printing of exam papers must be different from before, and be specified according to the number of subjects in each exam room.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, many localities have organized mock exams, which have basically gone smoothly, but the organization model is different from the real exam, such as taking more than 3 sessions. Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training requires localities to organize mock exams to be as similar as possible to the real exam model.

Due to the different time and number of exam sessions for the two candidates in the two programs, to avoid even the smallest errors, the Ministry of Education and Training requires organizing different exam sites for candidates in the two different programs. At the same exam site, the exam questions of the two programs will not be tested.

The Ministry of Education and Training will support the exam marking software, send staff and experts to provide technical support, and answer questions about the marking process to ensure compliance with the Examination Regulations.

This year's high school graduation exam schedule is as follows: