VOV: What is your assessment of the preparations for the graduation exam throughout provinces and cities?

Mr Giao: In general, provinces and cities have made careful preparations for the graduation exam, particularly training exam monitors. In addition, the ministry has asked provinces and cities to keep exam questions secret. According to the inspection delegation, provinces and cities consider the safety of the exam as the responsibility of the whole society, not only the education sector.

VOV: What will the ministry do to prevent negative phenomena in exam like the previous graduation exam?

Mr Giao: It was true that some provinces recorded some negative phenomena such as climbing into exam areas and threatening exam monitors. This year, they have implemented bold measures to prevent such phenomena. This was a lesson for localities throughout country to draw experience in educating people about pre-examination regulations. In addition, the Ministry of Education and Training should co-operate with police to ensure security in examination areas and devise measures to cope with possible situations such as fires and floods.

VOV: Could you talk about the inspection work for this year’s examination to quickly detect and resolve negative phenomena?

Mr Giao: This year, 64 inspection delegations will conduct fact-finding tours of localities to examine preparatory work for examinations in localities. The Ministry of Education and Training has asked the inspection delegations to raise their responsibility to ensure that examinations be held safely and reflect students’ studying results objectively.

VOV: Enforcing exam regulations is often considered the weakest aspect of examinations. How will the issue resolved this year?

Mr Giao: This year, many law-regulated documents have been issued to ensure the safety of examinations. The ministry demanded localities launch drastic measures to duly punish violations during the tests. The ministry will define the responsibility of each individual and each head of ministry and department and enforce a specific punishment if they let negative phenomenon occur. Those who release exam questions early will be strictly punished, and may even be sacked. If they violate rules in a systematic way they will be punish according to the Criminal Code.

VOV: This year’s examination feature many new elements. How did the ministry direct the compilation of the questions?

Mr Giao: The ministry has closely monitored the compilation of exam questions in order to ensure that they are exact, stick to the curriculum and meet the requirements of classifying students according to their ability. This year’s exam questions are better and more complicated than last year. There will be special exam questions for the three-year foreign language curriculum and the multiple-choice model for foreign language testing is expected to meet the requirements. This is the first time the multiple-choice test model for foreign languages will be held. Therefore it is very important for the ministry to gain experience for the following years to ensure that by 2008 all subjects will be tested according to the model.

VOV: Thank you very much.