Of those students that do register, the majority are choosing natural science and medical studies.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha, Head of the Continuation Education Division of the Hai Phong City Education and Training Department, has estimated that the number of registrations is about 30 percent lower than last year’s.

Nguyen Van Long from the Thanh Hoa provincial Education and Training Department said that 49,000 applications have been received, a drop of 14,000 in comparison with last year. That, in turn, was 16,000 lower than in 2012.

Pham Huu Ban from the Thai Binh provincial Education and Training Department has reported that he is dealing with 35,785 applications for sitting the university entrance exams, lower by 8,000 applications than last year.

Long from Thanh Hoa province noted that Vietnamese students seem to be abandoning the “university education dream”. It is noteworthy that this is happening after revelations that 72,000 recent graduates are unemployed. And it may not help that garment & footwear enterprises have made no secret of their preference for high-school graduates over holders of bachelor degrees.

According to Long, Vietnamese students and their parents might have realized that it would be better to go to vocational schools and get jobs with reasonable salaries than to attend universities and become jobless graduates.

Ban, agreeing with Long, said that vocational schools this year are trying to attract more high school students and they have gotten satisfactory initial results.

Ha attributes the sharp fall in the number of registrations to the decrease in the number of “virtual examinees”.

A “virtual examinee” is a student who registers to sit the entrance exams to schools but does not take the exams. Under the current laws, a student has the right to register to take exams for more than one school as long as he pays the exam fees. He can make his final decisions on which school he attend as late as one day before the exam day.

Ha thinks that the relatively high exam fee, VND105,000, has caused many students to “shrink back”, and only register for the exams to one or two schools, rather than 5 or 6 as was common in the past.

Medical schools favored, social science studies refused

Despite warnings about the possible overabundance of university economics majors, high school students are continuing to flock towards economics programs.

Long said Thanh Hoa’s students still pursue economics majors because they believe the field can bring best job opportunities. He noted that there have been 4,400 registrations to take the exams to Hanoi Industry University.

Educators all have noted that while the numbers of students registering to take A-group (comprising of natural science subjects – math, physics and chemistry) and B-group (math, chemistry and biology) exams are very high, only 3-5 percent of total students have registered to sit the C-group (literature, history and geography) exam for social science faculties.

Ban has noted the sharp increase of students wanting to go to medical schools, universities (6-year training), junior colleges (3-year training) and intermediate schools (2-year training).

This, according to Ban, has been attributed to the state agencies’ forecast about a serious deficit in the workforce of the healthcare sector.