From the academic year of 2014 – 2015, elementary and middle schools in Ho Chi Minh City will stop their enrollment for the Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), Do Minh Hoang, Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training’s chief of staff, has announced.

“Instead, the city will launch an integrated program between Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training and the UK’s Department for Education within the framework of the project on adjusting teaching and learning the subjects of mathematics, science and English with advanced standards,” Hoang added.

Accordingly, the new program promises to ease the pressure of school on students. Moreover, after graduating, students will receive certificates from the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training and the UK’s Department for Education.

Earlier, students were overstressed because they had to follow two separate programs from the Vietnamese educational ministry and Cambridge.

Le Hong Son, director of the city’s Department of Education and Training, said the new integrated program will meet the demands of many parents who want their children to both attend an international program and learn in the tradition of a Vietnamese education.

“Compared with the Cambridge program, the UK’s Department for Education’s program is on a bigger scale and offers more opportunities for students when they can attend graduating examinations with any international standard. I hope that the new program will suit Vietnamese students’ psychological and academic qualifications,” he added.

The Cambridge IGCSE program was launched in the southern city in 2010. It is now attracting 4,800 students studying with the program in 27 schools around the city.

Students who are studying in the Cambridge IGCSE program are still able to finish their curriculum as scheduled.

“The contract of EMG and CIE will be terminated at the end of this July. After that, EMG will not distribute CIE’s program in Vietnam in accordance with the contract. We will only teach and organize examinations for students who have already registered for the program,” said Nguyen Phuong Lan, deputy chairman of EMG Education, the distributor of Cambridge International Examinations (CIE) in Vietnam.

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