Ensuring fairness when converting benchmark scores to a common scale

Sharing at the seminar "2025 Admissions Consulting: Changes to create fairness" organized by Lao Dong Newspaper on March 6, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Anh Dung - Deputy Director of the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) - said that the ministry plans that the review scores and admission scores of the methods and subject combinations used for admission must be converted to a common scale.

This conversion, according to Mr. Dung, is carried out on a solid basis instead of mechanical conversion.

"Training institutions will proactively build rules to convert points. The school can use the admission results of previous years and the learning results of students according to different admission methods to build a relationship or a rule for converting admission scores between methods" - the Deputy Director of the Department of Higher Education emphasized.

On the side of higher education institutions, Dr. Luu Huu Duc - Head of the Management and Training Department, Academy of Finance - said that with this new regulation, each school will have a plan to convert its own admission scores to suit the target candidates. However, the conversion method needs to be public, transparent and ensure fairness for all candidates admitted to that school.

Informing about the admission plan of the Academy of Finance in 2025, Mr. Duc said that the Academy will reduce admission methods to facilitate candidates, while maintaining admission methods according to priority groups.

"For example, for international orientation programs, the Academy of Finance targets more candidates with English certificates. Therefore, we still prioritize using international English certificates to convert scores, counting them as the starting points for admission" - Dr. Luu Huu Duc shared.

The unit also takes into account the results of high school education for all 3 school years. The average score of the 6 semesters is also considered a starting point to evaluate both the students' learning process and admission results.

"The school's Admissions Council has carefully calculated this point and will soon include it in the Academy's admission plan in the coming time" - Dr. Luu Huu Duc informed.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Thi Hoa - Head of the Department of Testing and Training Quality Assurance, University of Transport - said that converting the standard score to a common scale will ensure that educational institutions have competent candidates suitable to the needs of each school and each major.

"In addition to the experience of the schools, we also have a database from the Northern admission group community, great support from data from the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education and Training. This helps us have a clearer view of the equivalent. For example, the academic performance to achieve 25 points from the results of the graduation exam when participating in the thinking assessment and ability assessment exam will have about how many points" - Ms. Hoa analyzed and said that this new point will ensure that higher education institutions can recruit candidates with the right abilities as desired.