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A teacher from the Hanoi-Amsterdam High School, Vu Quoc Lich, pointed out some of the reasons many students are turning away from social subjects, a trend that has been underway for many years.

Statistics show that, of the students registering for university entrance exams over the past few years, only 5-10% choose social subjects, such as literature, history and geography for the university exam.

Only 5-10% choose social subjects for their university entrance exam

Students find natural subjects easier

Currently, exams for social subjects are carried out in the written form, while the multiple choice method is used for the natural subjects of physics, chemistry and biology. This makes them both easier and susceptible to cheating.

Natural subjects offer better chances for jobs

Students who study social subjects often have less chance of being employed than those who study natural subjects.

Many students concentrate on studying natural sciences. This does not mean that they particularly like them, but are thinking to their employment opportunities. Parents often urge their student to study maths, physics and chemistry, not literature, history and geography as top university are only for students who study natural subjects.

Textbooks for social subjects out of date

Many students complain of being bored by textbooks that do not address the modern way of thinking. These books often teach history as a set of events and dates to remember.

The Ministry of Education and Training planned to ease their restrictions on the content lessons since a textbook reform in 2002. But it seems that the only change has been to add content to textbooks. Just after the reform, the geography textbook for grade 12 was 96 pages. now it is 208.