The Burden of Educational Limitations in Việt Nam’s Tenth Grade Entrance Exam

Every Tenth Grade admissions season, Vietnamese society returns to familiar debates regarding the number of subjects tested, the difficulty of the exam, the choice between entrance examinations and academic records, and the methods used to award priority points.

While these are necessary questions, focusing solely on improving the examination risks overlooking a much larger issue. Given the limited number of available schools, a transparent selection method is undeniably necessary. 

However, what truly deserves discussion is why Việt Nam continues to rely so heavily on a single examination to address broader, systemic problems within the education system.

An Examination Doing More Than Its Job

The Tenth Grade entrance examination itself is not the problem. 

An exam effectively assesses students’ abilities, creates a common standard, and provides a necessary means of selection when applicants exceed available seats. If there are ten students and only seven places, a system needs a way to decide who gets admitted.

The issue arises because an examination merely selects students when resources are scarce; it cannot explain why there are only seven places to begin with, nor why alternative pathways fail to give parents and students a sense of security.

Currently, localities such as Vĩnh Long Province and Cà Mau Province mainly maintain entrance examinations for specialized schools, while most public high schools admit students based on academic records. [1] 

This approach successfully reduces unnecessary pressure. However, it is only viable where the student population aligns with the system’s capacity to accommodate them.

In major urban centers like Hồ Chí Minh City, this model is far harder to implement. Because the number of students seeking admission to public schools greatly exceeds the available places, the Grade 10 examination becomes the default mechanism for selection.

This reliance does not mean the examination is inherently wrong, but it highlights that the test is performing an unintended function. Rather than just assessing students, it is managing the gap between educational demand and system capacity. 

An examination can answer who will be admitted, but it cannot answer how to create more quality educational options, reduce school disparities, or alleviate the immense pressure placed on a 15-year-old.

Quality Beyond Entrance Screening

Jonathan London, a former senior economic adviser to the United Nations Development Programme in Việt Nam, argued in an interview that organizing intense competition for limited public school seats should only be a short-term fix. 

While this approach may identify outstanding students, it fails at the system level by ignoring the root causes of the problem.

According to London, a long-term solution for improving educational quality cannot rely solely on screening students at the entrance. True improvement requires investing in more schools and teachers, as well as building an education system capable of meeting labor market demands.

This perspective doesn’t only come from outside the system.

In early May 2026, Tô Lâm candidly acknowledged that using examinations as a screening tool is fundamentally an administrative stopgap used when the system cannot meet the demand for school placements. [2] 

According to Lâm, this reliance has fostered an environment where the high school entrance examination is now more stressful than university admissions.

The Role of Public Education Policy

Understandably, schools cannot be forced to accept more students if they lack teachers, classrooms, and operational resources. 

However, the long-term response to educational overcrowding should not be to maintain these shortages and organize increasingly intense competitions to manage the overflow.

Instead, if there are not enough schools, capacity must be expanded through planning and investment. Similarly, if there is a shortage of teachers, then we must improve training, recruitment, and working conditions. 

If the quality disparities between schools and alternative post-lower-secondary pathways remain too large, efforts must focus on narrowing those gaps.

While these tasks are far more difficult than organizing a simple examination—requiring funding, time, and administrative capacity—they are the core responsibilities of public education policy. 

Recognizing the problem is only the first step; the greater challenge lies in turning those observations into a concrete, measurable reform agenda. 

As Jonathan London observed, upper-secondary education in Việt Nam remains a major weakness that has not yet received adequate attention.

***

Grade 10 entrance examinations may remain necessary in regions where educational resources cannot yet meet demand. But they should never be viewed as the final answer.

A well-designed examination can certainly help distribute opportunities more transparently under the current constraints of limited resources. 

However, a genuinely strong education system would not allow a young person’s entire future to depend so heavily on a single, high-stakes competition at the age of 15.

---

Thúc Kháng wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on June 8, 2026. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.