VietNamNet Bridge – Proctors seem to feel more worried than the examinees who attend the high school final exams, because they fear they may violate the exam regulations accidentally. 

More than one million students would attend the finals in 10 days. Meanwhile, schools still feel puzzled when implementing the new regulations which allow examinees to bring recorders into exam rooms. 

Do Viet Khoa, a teacher well known for his efforts to fight against the exam cheating, applauded the new regulation, saying that the proctors would have to do their works more seriously, because they know their works would be supervised. 

Tran Van Thi, Headmaster of the Luc Ngan 3 High School, said he has disseminated the exam regulations to all the teachers and students of the school. 

The new regulations would allow strengthening the supervision of examinees over the proctors’ works and forcing them to heighten their responsibility. With the cameras in the exam rooms, examinees can show the proofs of the wrongdoings conducted by proctors, if these occur. 

However, Thi said, the teachers have complained the new regulation has put them under a hard pressure. 

"They don’t have deep knowledge enough to tell the differences of the recorders and cameras and they don’t know what devices can be brought into exam rooms,” Thi said, adding that it’s very difficult to discover the tiny devices which look like buttons. 

The headmaster of the Luc Ngan 3 High School said he has asked informatics teachers of the schools who have deep knowledge about technologies, to share their knowledge with other teachers. 

Nghiem Quy Binh, Headmaster of the Dong Anh High School in Hanoi, also thinks that proctors would meet difficulties when differentiating transceiver devices. 

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen, Headmaster of the Tay Ho High School in Hanoi, said the school plans a training course next week to train the teachers how to recognize transceiver devices. 

It seems that the teachers in remote areas feel less pressure than their colleagues in the lowland, because the students there are believed to be more obedient. 

Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, Headmaster of the To Hieu High School in Son La province, said 465 students of the school would attend the finals in early June. 

"We have trained the teachers about the new exam regulations. The students have been asked not to bring prohibited transceiver devices to exam rooms. No student has had inquiry about the new regulation so far,” she said. 

Hoang Tien Duc, Director of the Son La provincial Education and Training Department, said the province would have 9,900 students to attend the high school finals. However, the education department tries not to "overplay,” so that the teachers and students are not excessively worried. 

Meanwhile, a lot of teachers don’t highly appreciate the solutions. Dao Ngoc Dinh, a teacher of the Hung Yen High School for the Gifted, frankly said the new regulation would not only help stop exam cheating, but may make the situation worse. 

If an examinee does not focus on his exam paper, but on filming, he must not be an examinee at all. Especially, the action of filming would badly affect the other students in the same room. Therefore, the solution offered by the education department may do more harm than good. 

Dan Viet

VietNamNet Bridge – In a notice about the 2013 civil servant recruitment plan, the Nam Dinh provincial people’s committee stated that it would not accept the candidates who finish in-service training courses.

Nguyen Xuan Binh, Chief Secretariat of the Ministry of Interior Affairs.
The notice has once again faced the strong opposition from the public, which believes that the provincial authorities have violated the current laws when refusing the graduates of in-service training, a kind of legal training recognized by the laws.
Nguyen Xuan Binh, Chief Secretariat of the Ministry of Interior Affairs, in an interview given to Giao duc Vietnam newspaper, affirmed that the Civil Servant Law does not comprise of any regulation saying that state management agencies are prohibited to recruit the candidates who finish in-service training. The Education Law does not mention the discriminatory treatment to different training modes.
"All the state agencies and state agencies’ officers have the responsibility of restricting the laws,” Binh said in the interview.
Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Tuan, Chair of Nam Dinh province, keeps calm amid the heavy criticism. He said that saying "no” to in-service training graduates has been laid down as a provincial committee of the Communist Party.
Nam Dinh remains the only province in Vietnam which refuses to recruit the graduates of in-service training courses for its state agencies.
Tuan has cited two reasons behind the decision on refusing to recruit in-service training graduates: 1) the in-service training quality is too low, and 2) Nam Dinh province has too many excellent students and no need to consider recruiting worse students who finish in-service training mode.
Tuan said in the war time, when not many people had the opportunities to follow university education, in-service training was really helpful, allowing officers to improve their qualifications and obtain university degrees. That explains why many current high ranking leaders in the province finish in-service training courses.
However, the conditions now are quite different, and it’s now the time to recruit the officers who are well trained under full-time training courses.
Most of the in-service students are believed to have bad learning abilities, who only attend in-service training courses because they fail the university entrance exams to the full-time training courses of state owned schools.
"I once worked with in-service training graduates and I found them unqualified enough,” he said.
The second reason, according to Tuan, is that Nam Dinh has been well known for its people’s eagerness for learning, and Nam Dinh’s students are too good at their study. Therefore, the provincial authorities find it unnecessary to recruit worse candidates.
"Nam Dinh has always been listed among the top provinces and cities which have the best students’ achievements at the national university entrance exams every year,” Tuan said. Nam Dinh’s students have always been leading at the national competitions for excellent students. At least 10,000 out of the 20,000 students pass the university entrance exams every year.
"In-service students cannot be compared with full-time training students,” he maintained.
Especially, Tuan believes that the policy on saying "no” to in-service training students would help students make more reasonable choices for their education.
To date, nearly all the high school graduates plan to attend the university entrance exams to fulfill their "university education dream.” Those, who fail the exams to state owned schools, would attend in-service training courses to obtain university degrees at any costs.
However, the students may change their thoughts if they realize that they would have no opportunities to become the officers at the local state agencies. 

GDVN