Illustration by Trịnh Lập

Thu Trang

My twin daughters will take the entrance exam to high school this year. They are both working hard to prepare for the exam, which will be held in about four months.

My daughters are dedicated in their studies, but I cannot help worrying as the number of public schools is limited while the candidates are many, and I cannot afford private school fees.

During the past five years, many localities across the country such as Tuyên Quang, Lào Cai, Quảng Trị and Nghệ An have added one or two priority marks, exempted from exams, and directly recruited candidates with International English Language Testing System (IELTS) scores of 4.0 or higher, to high schools.

The effort aimed to promote foreign language skills among local students.

Knowing this, my worry doubled or even tripled. My daughters are interested in literature and history, and they gained excellent results with city-level awards. But they have not attended any IELTS classes or competitions.

How can they compete against others with IELTS certificates?

I breathed a sigh of relief after the Ministry of Education and Training on Friday asked localities to stop direct admission for 10th graders with IELTS certificates.

Candidates are directly admitted to 10th grade if they belong to one of four groups: studying in ethnic group boarding schools; from ethnic groups with very little population; are disabled; or win national and international awards in culture, arts, sports, science or technology.

And many other parents shared my joy.

Vũ Hoàng Ngân, a mother in Hà Nội, said she totally agreed with the ministry’s decision.

“Children at this age need to develop a lot of knowledge and skills, foreign language is just one part of it. Taking the IELTS certificate as an admission standard makes parents worry, and rush to send their children to costly IELTS classes,” she said.

“The students may lack knowledge in other majors and not have time to practise other skills. This will be a serious difficulty for children whose strength is not in foreign languages but still have to strive for the certificate,” said Ngân.

The decision also received agreement from teachers and students.

Phạm Quỳnh Trang, a teacher of English at the Nhân Chính Junior Secondary School in Thanh Xuân District in Hà Nội, said that English should be considered a communication tool, and should not be used to evaluate student abilities.

“Human abilities need to be evaluated comprehensively. Relying on an English certificate to directly enrol into grade 10th would be unsuitable," she said.

"I believe that when students enter high school, the things that need to be prioritised are activities that contribute to the community," said Trang.

Sharing the same view, Nguyễn Minh Hường, a student of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Việt Nam National University, with a 7.5 IELTS score last year, said many contents in IELTS were only suitable for adults, for instance, science, law, social relationships, careers and university education.

“Learners need to have a complete foundation of natural and social knowledge to understand and perform the tasks in this test. At the age of 15, it is very difficult for students to thoroughly understand those topics,” she said.

Nguyễn Mai Hồng, lecturer of the English Faculty at a university in Hà Nội, said that studying IELTS at a young age was not a good choice.

“It even can cause inequality between rich and poor, rural and urban students, because fees for the test are quite high, especially for those living in rural areas,” she said.

Mai believes that the ministry’s decision will ease pressure on many students and parents.

“Students should start preparing for the IELTS exam from grade 10, preferably grade 11, if they really need the certificate to apply for admission to domestic or foreign universities,” she said.

It must be acknowledged that, with the development of society and the trend of international integration, foreign language skills, especially in English, will lead to many opportunities for everyone.

It is a great advantage for students and will open doors for them to enter different countries with different cultures.

Nevertheless, we should not place too much importance on foreign language certificates at the expense of other subjects.

Children of any age can learn English, but if we force them to study and achieve a set result in exams, that may defeat the purpose.

The main purpose of learning a foreign language is to actually use it in daily communication and work. It should be considered as one of many possible skills, not a norm to assess students’ capacity.

For students at age 14-15, comprehensively developing every skill is more important. It’s a good time to raise their desire to learn and love English, such as letting them listen to or read good stories in English, but not force them to study and understand difficult topics to prepare for competitive exams.

Now my twin daughters, with strength and passion for social subjects, will be more confident for the coming exam. — VNS