Nearly 30,000 students in Hanoi failed the entrance exam to public high schools. However, many good students also could not obtain a seat at the schools. Some of them had a 7.5/10 score for each exam subject. The reason was that they had made a mistake when choosing schools, and registered to enroll in schools that set high benchmarks.

T.H.H in Hai Ba Trung district said that with a 37-exam score, her son failed to enroll in all three schools he requested. Luckily, she heard that Bac Luong Son High School in Yen Binh commune in Thach That suburban district was admitting students from anywhere in Hanoi with even less than a 5 score for each exam subject.

“The school is far from my home, but this is a public school and we don’t need to pay tuition,” she explained.

Since the school is far from home, she decided to rent a room for her son. As the school is located in the suburbs, the rent and expenses on food are just VND3 million a month, which is affordable. If she had sent her son to a private school, the tuition would have been much higher.

“We told our son that this was the last resort and he had to accept the option,” she said.

Like Bac Luong Son High School, Minh Quang High School in Minh Quang commune in Ba Vi district also enrolled students from citywide.

Established in 2014 with modern facilities, covering an area of 2 hectares, 70-80 kilometers from the central area, the school lacks students, though it sets very low benchmarks. With just a 17 score, students can enroll in the school.

The schools like Bac Luong Son and Minh Quang are reasonable options for students with learning records and exam results that are worse than other students.

“My daughter got a 7.4 score for each exam subject, but she could not enroll in all schools, including private schools,” N.V.L, a parent in Long Bien district, said.

“She insisted on continuing to study. She doesn’t want to go to vocational school as suggested by us. We had no other choice than enrolling her in Minh Quang School, 80 kilometers from our home,” he explained.

A representative of Minh Quang High School said the benchmarks set by the school are not high as the school wants to enroll most secondary school graduates in the locality.

However, the schools can enroll students with good learning records with 15 percent of students obtaining a 30-42 score at high school entrance exams. In recent years, 10 percent of the school’s graduates passed entrance exams to top-tier universities.

This year, both Minh Quang and Bac Luong Son High Schools require low benchmarks of a 17 score, which means that students need to have a 3 score for each exam subject to be eligible for study at the schools. However, the schools still lacked hundreds of students.

Later, when enrolling students for the second campaign (the students failing to enroll in some schools can register to study at another school as a second option), the schools asked for permission from the Hanoi Education and Training Department to enroll students with an 18 score and higher. This gives opportunities to Hanoi students to study at public schools. 

On July 14, the Hanoi Department of Education and Training signed a decision on allocating enrollment quotas in the 2023-2024 to 34 education establishments, under which 72 more classes will accept students. The 34 schools will enroll 3,339 10th graders.

Prior to that, on July 10, the department also assigned six private high schools students in the 10th grade, including Hoang Long High School, Ly Nhan Tong, Bac Ha – Dong Da, Mai Hac De, Dong Kinh and Pham Ngu Lao High Schools.

The total quota for the six schools is 46 classes with 2,070 students. Each school will enroll 225-450 students.

Hoang Thanh