On July 21, 2022, the Ministry of Education and Training issued Official Dispatch 3175/BGDĐT-GDTrH, guiding the innovation of teaching methods and testing and assessment of Literature in high schools.
One of the most notable contents of this document is the requirement to avoid reusing texts learned in textbooks as materials for constructing reading and writing tests in assessing learning outcomes at the end of a semester, year, or grade. The purpose is to accurately assess students’ abilities, overcoming the situation where students only memorize lessons or copy content from available documents.
The implementation of Official Dispatch 3175/BGDĐT-GDTrH is continued to be emphasized by the Ministry of Education and Training in the guidance on implementing tasks for the school years 2022 – 2023, 2023 – 2024 and 2024 – 2025.
In fact, the practice of using materials outside of textbooks was applied early, long before the issuance of Official Dispatch 3175. Specifically, in order to limit rote learning, rote learning, and sample texts, in the national high school exam (from 2020 onwards, the high school graduation exam) in Literature, the reading comprehension text was not included in the textbook; the social argumentation question promoted the writer’s personal viewpoint and could not be copied from the sample text.
Although it has only stopped at the high school graduation exam and has not been widely deployed in testing and assessment at schools, this is a necessary and important stepping stone so that when officially deployed, there will be no surprises or confusion.
Only after Official Letter 3175, did high schools officially apply the policy of not using materials in textbooks for periodic examinations in Literature. After 2 years of implementation, positive changes were recorded, both for teachers and students; significantly reducing the reading and copying teaching method, the phenomenon of model writing, students were truly focused on developing their qualities and abilities. Teachers improved their professional capacity through training sessions, from practical experience in creating questions according to new requirements and innovating teaching methods.
However, there are still difficulties in implementing this new requirement, especially in creating exam and test questions. Besides good and creative essay questions, there are still many exam and test questions that have errors, especially in the selection of materials.
Commonly encountered are materials that do not ensure content, art, standards and creativity in language; are not reasonable in capacity, some materials are too long; are not of the correct type/genre of the prescribed program; are not suitable for learners… Unsecured materials will lead to questions and requirements that are not as good as expected.
From 2025, the high school graduation exam will begin to thoroughly implement the requirement of not using materials from textbooks. Accordingly, not only reading comprehension but also the literary argument section will use new materials, no longer the situation of many years of only revolving around a few poetry and literature works in 12th grade textbooks.
In addition to improving teachers’ ability to create questions, it is extremely important to change teaching and learning methods so that students can meet new requirements. Teaching specific “things” should be replaced by teaching “how”, so that students can be confident with materials they have never encountered before.
At the same time, training students in reading habits and improving reading culture needs to be given more substantial attention. This not only helps students improve their vocabulary, language skills, writing ability, etc. to serve the purpose of learning Literature, but is also extremely necessary to contribute to the formation of skills and abilities according to the requirements of the 2018 General Education Program.