The floor mark scheme has been removed

The HCM City Food Industry University has announced floor marks for its majors, applied for the 2018 academic year. The highest floor mark, 18, is for the food technology major. 

This is the first university in Vietnam that has set floor marks even though the results of the high school finals have not been released. 

Instead of the marks set by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and applied to all universities, there will be marks set by universities themselves and applied to their students only.

Nguyen Van Duong, deputy head of the Training Division of the HCMC Economics University, said the school may set different floor marks for different majors. 

When asked if the removal of the national floor mark scheme would affect the quality of input students, Duong said the removal would have no considerable influence on top-tier universities, which require high minimum marks.

In 2017, students must get 20 or more to enter the school, while they must get 25 to be able to follow the ‘hottest’ training major.

Tran Dinh Ly, head of the training division of the HCMC University of Agriculture and Forestry, said that his school will make public the exam results, slated for July 12, and then will release information on its floor marks.

Ly said the required exam scores this year would be lower than the previous year.

A university lecturer in Hanoi commented that education experts have every reason to worry about the quality of students once the floor mark scheme is removed. Less prestigious schools may require low exam scores to be able to enroll enough students.

“I guess the students with 10 scores for three exam subjects would also be able to enroll in some schools,” he said. “If this is true, this would be a threat to Vietnam’s education.”

Over 100 universities in Vietnam have announced they will enroll students by considering their records at high schools, and many of them have set very modest requirements.

Surprisingly, some universities have announced they will enroll students for some training majors, including accountancy, business administration and finance & banking, based on students’ exam scores in social sciences.

Dong Nai University of Technology, for example, is seeking students for technology and IT faculties by considering students’ scores in literature, history and geography.

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