News and Events

A university in the Mekong Delta has confirmed that the winner of the Miss Vietnam 2012 contest did not lie about her education when registering for the beauty pageant, which concluded last month.

Dang Thu Thao, 21, was crowned Miss Vietnam 2012 after captivating the hearts of the judges and audiences with her natural beauty in a splendid finale broadcast live nationwide on August 25.

Following her victory, Thao was right away accused of misleading the organizers by declaring that she is a college student at Tay Do University in Can Tho City.

One of her classmates, who preferred to stay anonymous, even alleged that Thao is just enrolled in a two-year vocational course there, and that she has yet to finish it.

But Tay Do University has confirmed that Thao already passed an entrance exam to a junior-college-level program at the school after finishing a two-year vocational course.

The beauty has kept silent about all this so far.

Local media have made a fuss about this issue ever since she took the crown, even though Thao already graduated from high school – a necessary condition to be eligible to take part in the pageant, as stipulated by current regulations.

This is not the first time beauty contest winners’ education has been queried by the media, which tend to find fault with them as Vietnamese seem to be highly critical of such Misses.

Miss Vietnam 2008, Tran Thi Thuy Dung, used to face a lot of pressure after she was discovered not finishing high school yet. However, the organizers later confirmed that she was allowed to keep the title since high schoolers were still eligible for the pageant then.

In a more recent incident, the winner of Miss Vietnam World 2010, Luu Thi Diem Huong, was badly criticized for her poor performance at a local university as soon as an academic transcript was posted online several days after she was crowned.