HCMC records best English test scores for sixth year running

More than 870,000 students took foreign language tests in English, Russian, French, Chinese, German, Korean or Japanese at the 2022 national high school graduation exam.

Of these, more than 866,000 candidates (99.5 percent) took the English test. Therefore, the average score in foreign language tests is virtually the score in English.

The average score of foreign languages in all provinces and cities this year was 5.15 points, lower than last year’s 5.84 points, according to results released by the Ministry of Education and Training Sunday.

The southern provinces of Binh Duong and Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province came in second and third place after HCMC with average scores of 6.25 and 5.83, respectively. While all there localities recorded lower scores than last year’s average, they retained the top 3 rankings for three consecutive years.

HCMC has maintained its first position from 2017 until now.

The next three positions were taken by Hanoi (5.83 points), Hai Phong (5.77) and Da Nang (5.75).

The most common score in the English test was below average at 3.8 points, with more than 38,000 candidates achieving this score.

About 30,000 candidates scored 3-5 points.

The number of students scoring 10 out of 10 was 425.

Ha Giang Province remained at the bottom in foreign language test scores with an average of 3.79 points. The northern highlands province has underperformed for many years in a row, not just in foreign languages, but also many other subjects.

This year’s high school graduation exam took place July 7-8 with about one million students attending. Of these, more than 859,500 students took the exam both for graduation and university admission.

In Vietnam, English is a compulsory subject from 3rd grade onwards. Students in public schools are mostly taught using the traditional methods of grammar exercises and vocabulary cramming. In major cities like Hanoi and HCMC, many parents send their children to English centers at an early age.

Several English language proficiency rankings have placed Vietnam in the lower rungs, even within the Southeast Asian region.