This year's high school graduation exam is set to take place on July 6, 7 and 8.

Nguyễn Mạnh Hùng, an expert of the Higher Education Department, Ministry of Education and Training, on Sunday said that the ministry had worked with the education and training departments nationwide to agree on the organisation of the exam to fit with pandemic developments in each locality.

He said the system would allow students practising to register for the exam at around the end of April. The official registration will take place between April 28 and May 12.

The ministry posted sample exam questions on its website on March 31 for candidates to refer to and prepare for the exam.

The organisation of this year’s exam is the same as in recent years with three independent tests in Mathematics, Literature, and Foreign Languages and two combined tests of Natural Sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) and Social Sciences (History, Geography, and Citizen Education).

The exam will focus on subjects learnt in the twelfth grade. Only the literature test will be conducted as an essay exam. Other tests will be taken under a multi-choice format.

The high school graduation exam is held nationwide, with about 900,000 to 1 million candidates each year.

The exam results are mainly used for high school graduation, with most universities and colleges also using the results for admission.

Hùng said a new feature of university admission was that high-school students must register online on the ministry’s admissions portal and the National Public Service Portal instead of registering for the exam on paper as in previous years.

However, freelance candidates would still have to register for the exam on paper and send it to the relevant addresses according to Department of Education and Training regulations.

In the last two years, due to the pandemic, the education ministry had to organise the exam in two phases. Candidates, who had direct contact with COVID-19 patients and candidates who had direct contact with F1 cases and those living in areas under lockdown had to sit the exam in the second phase.

However, for the exam this year, representatives of the education and training departments suggested that it was not necessary to organise the exam in two phases, said Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyễn Hữu Độ.

Under the latest guidance of the Health Ministry, F1 cases, who have no symptoms, will not be quarantined as before so that students, who are F1 can take the exam and follow the ministry’s 5K messages: Khẩu trang (facemask) – Khử khuẩn (disinfection) – Khoảng cách (distance) – Không tụ tập (no gathering) – Khai báo y tế (health declaration), he said.

“Candidates infected with SARS-CoV-2 will graduate from high school without taking the exam according to the exam regulations,” he said.