VietNamNet Bridge – Hundreds of excellent students, who got 27/30 marks from the university entrance exams, or 9/10 mark for every exam subject, have failed the exams to the Hanoi Medical University.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has officially rejected the proposal by the Hanoi medical school to “save” the excellent students who got 27 marks from the national university entrance exams, just 0.5-1.5 points below the required threshold.

Some days ago, the medical school sent a dispatch to the education ministry, asking for the permission to enroll 150 students for the non-budget training course. This means that the students would have to pay their tuitions for the study at the school. They would study together with the other students who have officially passed the exams and would enjoy the partial subsidy from the State.

The medical school planed to give equal opportunities to both the state budgeted and non-budget students. The only difference between them is that non-budget students, who are let through would have to pay full tuitions. It was expected that each of the students would have to pay VND5-7 million per annum.

At present, the State props up VND500,000 a month to every student of the medical school, which is double the subsidy provided to the students of the economics and social sciences majors.

However, the education ministry has said “no” to the proposal.

“The Ministry of Education and Training’s principle is that there must not be non-budget training at state owned schools,” said Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga.

In fact, the Hanoi Medical University has not announced the minimum required marks for the GP (general practitioners) training major yet. However, sources said that only those who got 28 marks would have the opportunity for the school admission.

The decision by the education ministry has caused big disappointment not only to students, but also to healthcare experts.

Medical schools always set sky high minimum required marks on students in an effort to select the best students for the training major. Meanwhile, Vietnam has been seriously lacking qualified doctors.

The deputy director of a big hospital in Hanoi said that by refusing to admit hundreds of excellent students to medical school, Vietnam would lose the opportunity to find talents for the Vietnamese medicine science.

“The students, though having failed the exams, are really the excellent students and if they can be well trained, they would be able to become good physicians,” he commented.

Some analysts have warned that the rejection of the education ministry may lead to the brain drain, because many of the students would try to follow the university education by going studying abroad, and a high percentage of them may stay working overseas after the graduation.

If so, Vietnam would see the “foreign currency bleeding,” because Vietnamese would bring dollars abroad to pay for their foreign training courses.

The Ministry of Finance, when releasing a report on the foreign currency inflow and outflow, has also raised its concern that a big amount of foreign currencies has been going out of the Vietnamese territory as Vietnamese go abroad to follow university education and pay for healthcare services.

However, the education ministry has its reason to make such a decision. If it agreed to the proposal, it would violate the current regulations, while this would pave the way for other schools to enroll non-state students.

Nguyen Thao