Professor Mai Văn Trinh, director-general of the Quality Control Department under the Ministry of Education and Training. — Photo sggp.org.vn

Professor Mai Văn Trinh, director-general of the Quality Control Department under the Ministry of Education and Training, speaks to Sài Gòn Giải Phóng (Liberated Sài Gòn) newspaper on local authorities’ role in the upcoming high school graduation exam

What are the differences in the high school graduation exam for 2020 compared to previous years?

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government has agreed with a proposal made by the Ministry of Education and Training on the organisation of the 2020 national high school graduation examination. According to the proposal, provincial authorities have to take full responsibility for organising and marking the students’ exam papers in their own locality as well as publicising the exam results. One important principle that all high schools have to observe is that all exam supervisors must come from other schools in the province. According to a plan on June 9 and 10, a training course for all people involved in the coming national high school graduation examination will be held to make sure that the graduation exam will take place in a safe and sound manner.

In previous years, up to 50 per cent of inspectors were staff sent from universities. Yet this year, all the examination inspectors are local teachers. Do you think the exam results will be objective and fair?

Basically speaking, there is no major change in high school graduation exam procedures this year compared with the previous year.

However, among exam inspectors there will be quite a few staff from universities and from the Ministry of Education and Training as well as the local provincial Department of Education and Training. The only difference compared to previous years is local provincial authorities, including some inspectors, will take part in supervising the graduation examination. Each inspector will only be assigned to supervise an examination room once.

What about grading examination papers?

The grading of the examination papers will be done on computers using special software. Of course, all activities will be supervised by a special camera system.

What’s more important, this year the Ministry of Education and Training has demanded everything must be transparent to avoid any fraudulent acts.

The Ministry of Education and Training has demanded that all provinces hold high the principle of transparency and accountability throughout the course of marking the test papers.

Do you think with those measures people can be at ease that the school graduation exam this year will be totally objective, safe and no bias?

In this year’s school graduation exam, the provincial People’s Committee has to take full responsibility for the safe organisation of the graduation exam in their locality. To make sure everything goes smoothly, the ministry has adopted a series of measures, ranging from classroom activities and academic electronic records.

We hope this year, we will have a fair, objective and strict school graduation exam for all 12th graders. VNS