Six candidates who were at the top of their class failed the 2014 civil-service exam in Hanoi.

According to the Hanoi Interior Affairs Department, thousands of candidates took the exam. Of these, 41 candidates, thanks to their excellent learning records, were exempted from sitting the agencies’ entrance exam, but still had to take a test (essay and interview). And 10 of them failed the test.

Six of the 10 candidates were recognized as top graduates of domestic universities, while the other four showed foreign universities’ degrees with “good” and “excellent” grades. Three of them had master’s degrees.

Similar results were reported for the 2013 civil-service exam. Of the 43 candidates exempted from the agencies’ entrance exam, nine could not pass the test. Five of them were top graduates of domestic universities and four were good and excellent graduates of foreign schools.

The chair of the Hanoi Valedictorians’ Club, Nguyen Hung Cuong, MA, who was the top graduate of the Hanoi School of Law in 2007, commented that Hanoi agencies should directly admit candidates who rank first on the lists of universities’ students, without requiring them to attend any exam or test.

The agencies can assess their capability after a certain working period and decide whether to recruit them as formal officers.

“Hanoi organizes ceremonial events to glorify the students who come first at the schools’ exams every year as a part of the program on ‘laying out the red carpet to welcome talents’. However, the significance will be lost once the talents are still required to sit the exams to enter state’s agencies,” he said, adding that the so called “test” is just like an exam.

Commenting about the exams, Cuong said the exam marks and the interview are only partial indicators of a candidates’ ability. Those who fail exams are not incapable, and not all of the candidates passing exams have high qualifications.

He went on to say that the qualification of the top graduates from different schools is not the same. Their abilities are different, depending on the training environment and their efforts.

The value of university degrees also varies, depending on the school’s prestige. Valedictorians are not always good and foreign school graduates are not always better than domestic school graduates.

Nguyen Thien Tu from the Hanoi Youth Union noted that the number of valedictorians who want to work for state agencies after finishing school is on the rise.

Sixty-five of 123 valedictorians in 2013 showed their wish to work for state agencies, while 30 said they wanted to work for foreign-invested enterprises.

In 2014, of the 132 valedictorians, 70 said they want to become civil servants, while only 15 said they wanted to work for foreign-invested enterprises or organizations.