The national high school examinations began yesterday with 868,378 candidates taking them. VNA/VNS. Photo.Thành Đạt

HCM CITY— More than 868,000 students sat the 2019 national high school examinations, which began yesterday, at 1,980 venues around the country.

The number is nearly 40,000 lower than last year, according to the Ministry of Education and Training.

Hà Nội has the highest number of candidates with more than 74,000 and HCM City follows with nearly 71,000.

More than 50,000 lecturers and other staff from universities and colleges are invigilating.

On the first day candidates took tests in literature and maths.

Next up will be natural sciences, foreign languages and social sciences on June 26 and 27.

The ministry has this year installed cameras in rooms where test papers are stored and will be marked after the exams.

According to a preliminary report from the exam steering committee, 25 candidates flouted exam regulations, including 22 who have been rusticated.

Universities

Of 887,104 candidates registering for the examination – more than 3,000 dropped out of the exams on the opening day -- 653,278 have also applied to universities and colleges, with admissions to be based on their exam scores.

The number is 10,000 up from last year.

Dr Phạm Như Nghệ, deputy head of the ministry’s higher education department, said more than 30,000 applications had been received by the top universities and those with a large number of streams.

Trade, management and law are the streams to received the largest number of applications.

According to the University of Science belonging to the Việt Nam National University HCM City, it has received 20,232 applications for various courses, with computer science and IT getting the largest number of more than 5,800.

Phùng Quán, head of the university’s communication and information division, told Việt Nam News: “Many candidates choose hot majors required by the labour market.”

Streams like biology, physics, material sciences, maths, oceanography, and geology are not too popular.

Phạm Thái Sơn, director of the communication and admission centre at the HCM City University of Food Industry, said his university had received 1,000 applications more than last year, with the most popular streams being business administration, accounting and finance.

Material technologies and seafood processing technologies had not attracted much interest, he said.

"These majors were developed based on development trends meaning demand for human resources in these industries is high, but many candidates still lack a proper understanding of them," he added.VNS