On October 31, the Office of the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province sent a document to the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province to convey the direction of Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province Dau Thanh Tung, directing the settlement of the petition of Mr. Tran Xuan Dat (residing in Dong Tho ward, Thanh Hoa city) requesting to temporarily stop announcing the results of the Thanh Hoa Math Team exam and clarify the selection of excellent students in Math, English and Informatics of Lam Son High School for the Gifted.

The document stated that after reviewing Mr. Tran Xuan Dat's petition, Vice Chairman of Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee Dau Thanh Tung transferred the petition and assigned the Director of the Department of Education and Training to direct the settlement according to the provisions of law, issue a written response to the citizen and report to the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee.

Regarding this content, on October 30, Thanh Hoa Provincial Police also sent a document transferring Mr. Tran Xuan Dat's petition to the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa Province for consideration and settlement according to regulations.

Previously, on October 18, Mr. Tran Xuan Dat submitted a petition to the Ministry of Education and Training, the Chairman of Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee, Thanh Hoa Provincial Police... reflecting many contents related to some "controversial" issues in selecting students to compete in provincial-level excellent student competitions to select teams to compete in the 2024 National Excellent Student Competition.

In the petition, there are some contents of selecting students to compete in provincial-level excellent student competitions to select the team to compete in the 2024 National Excellent Student Competition at Lam Son High School for the Gifted that have been reported by Nguoi Lao Dong Newspaper, such as the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province agreeing to allow Lam Son High School for the Gifted to increase the number of student teams from 15 to 20 students (Math and English) when the competition has been organized and the scores have been announced, leading to some candidates being outside the list, then being on the team list.

Specifically, on September 7 and 8, Lam Son High School for the Gifted held a selection exam for the school’s excellent student team. The list of scores of 43 students taking the Math selection exam was also announced.

On September 18, the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province unexpectedly agreed to allow Lam Son High School for the Gifted to increase the number of student teams from 15 to 20. Since then, candidate LVAĐ. (grade 11, Math 2) had his re-examination score increased by 1.5 points (to 13.5 points), rising to 20th place. This candidate initially had 12.0 points, ranking 22nd.

Because the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province changed its decision to increase from 15 students to 20 for the two subjects Math and English, student LVAĐ. suddenly "got" into the list of candidates for the entrance exam of Lam Son High School for the Gifted.

It is worth mentioning that in the petition, Mr. Tran Xuan Dat reflected that after selecting 20 students to take the entrance exam for the Thanh Hoa Math Team (representing the National exam), there were still students whose scores were increased after the review, thereby making it onto the list of the Math Team for the National exam.

Specifically, after the exam scores were released, 3 candidates filed for appeal, of which 2 candidates increased their scores, including student LVK who increased by 1.5 points (from 11.5 to 13.0 points) and entered the list of 10 students, pushing the student who was ranked 10th "out" of the list.

"From the above issues, to restore justice to the students, I am submitting a request for inspection and to temporarily suspend the announcement of the list of Thanh Hoa Math Team for clarification" - Mr. Tran Xuan Dat stated in the request.

Regarding the fact that a candidate was given an additional 1.5 points and passed the Thanh Hoa Math Competition to participate in the 2024-2025 National Excellent Student Exam, a leader of the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province confirmed that the above information is true.

This leader explained that the increase in scores was due to the difficulty of the gifted student exam, with many different ways to solve it, so the teachers who graded the exam were still lacking. "The re-grading and increasing the score is extremely sensitive, so the Department is very careful. However, there are still exams that students do in many new ways that the teachers have not taught (the graders are teachers from high schools in the area, while the students taking the math exam all study at Lam Son High School for the Gifted - PV) so the grading is still not strict" - the leader of the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province explained.

It is known that the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa province has made a list of teams participating in the National Excellent Student Competition in 2024-2025, including the Math Team.