Dr. Ta Ngoc Tri, Deputy Director of the Department of Primary Education (Ministry of Education and Training), said that the innovation of testing and assessment needs to be changed in terms of awareness to provide information to support the teaching and learning process; including supporting teachers to improve the teaching process, supporting students to improve their learning for better educational results and goals.

“The purpose of the test is not to test students’ knowledge, but to test whether teaching and learning are effective or not. So the role of testing and assessment is not to rank but to test the effectiveness of teaching and learning,” said Mr. Tri.

Mr. Tri said that there are two basic types of testing and assessment: assessment by criteria and assessment by standards. Mr. Tri also raised the question: "If 100% of high school graduates pass the exam, do we need to organize an exam or not?". Many people say: "What's the point of taking the exam if 100% pass?", but Mr. Tri said that is the wrong answer.

According to Mr. Tri, the graduation exam is similar to the driving license exam, even if 100% of people pass, the exam still needs to be held. “Because if there is no exam, how can we ensure that a driver can drive safely on the road... the high school graduation exam is the same. The exams of universities will have the value of a test according to the criteria for selecting students. The high school graduation exam is a standardized test. The two evaluation methods are different with different goals. But universities can use the graduation exam as a criterion,” said Mr. Tri.

Professor Le Anh Vinh, Director of the Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences, said that we need to be careful because if not, it could lead to us "mixing" the tasks of student assessment of all 3 tasks: in-class assessment; graduation exam; university entrance exam. Then, we apply the assessment standards of the university entrance exam to the graduation exam, or even regular testing and assessment in class.

“When the Ministry of Education and Training released the sample test for the high school graduation exam from 2025, I think it should be approached as an innovation in the new assessment method in the official exam. But if in some places today, they are too enthusiastic about that format and "cover" it in the final exams from grade 10, even from grade 9, it is very dangerous. Because the test format when released by the Ministry of Education and Training is intended to convey more messages about how teaching and learning should be open and changeable; it is not a standard form of assessment to be applied rigidly,” said Mr. Vinh.

“When we look too much at the final exam and all the activities that go into it, the tests and assessments don’t provide much information about student learning, they only provide information about exam preparation. This is very worrying.”

At the workshop, there were concerns that according to the output standards, students must complete 3 general competencies, 7 specific competencies and 5 qualities to be assessed as having completed the 2018 general education program. Meanwhile, the high school graduation exam from 2025 requires taking 4 subjects including Math, Literature and 2 elective subjects. "So how should we assess the fact that students must take the high school graduation exam to complete the general education program and receive a graduation certificate, is there a contradiction?", this person said.

Regarding this, Mr. Tri said that the State sets the program standards and the high school graduation exam is only the final step to award the diploma. "In fact, we also have to consider the high school transcript scores, which according to the Ministry of Education and Training's plan will increase to 50% in calculating the graduation score and this is related to the teaching and learning process," Mr. Tri said.

Professor Le Anh Vinh said that if the purpose of helping students achieve the qualities and abilities according to the output standards of the 2018 general education program is met, completing and achieving good results in the high school graduation exam will certainly not be difficult for them. Therefore, teachers and schools should not worry too much about this issue.

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