Vietnamese school grades:
Tốt, Khá, Đạt
Vietnam stopped ranking school students Xuất sắc / Giỏi / Khá in 2021. Here is what replaced it.
Quick answer: Since Circular 22/2021, a Vietnamese secondary school report gives one of four levels — Tốt (good), Khá (fair), Đạt (pass) or Chưa đạt (not passed) — separately for conduct and for academic results. There is no overall percentage or GPA, and the old Xuất sắc / Giỏi / Khá / Trung bình ranking no longer applies.
What changed, and when
Circular 22/2021/TT-BGDĐT was issued on 20 July 2021 and replaced Circular 58/2011, which had ranked students by an overall average into Xuất sắc, Giỏi, Khá, Trung bình, Yếu and Kém.
It was phased in one year group at a time:
| Academic year | Grades using Circular 22 |
|---|---|
| 2021–22 | Grade 6 |
| 2022–23 | Grades 7 and 10 |
| 2023–24 | Grades 8 and 11 |
| 2024–25 | Grades 9 and 12 |
So a school transcript covering 2021 to 2024 can contain both systems — some years ranked the old way, some the new. Only from 2024–25 is the whole secondary system on Circular 22.
The four levels
Assessed separately for rèn luyện (conduct) and học tập (academic results), each semester and for the year.
| Level | Academic requirement |
|---|---|
| Tốt Good | All comment-assessed subjects at Đạt. All scored subjects with a semester and annual subject average of 6.5 or above, of which at least six subjects reach 8.0. |
| Khá Fair | All comment-assessed subjects at Đạt. All scored subjects at 5.0 or above, of which at least six reach 6.5. |
| Đạt Pass | At most one comment-assessed subject at Chưa đạt. No subject with a semester or annual average below 3.5. |
| Chưa đạt Not passed | All remaining cases. |
Some subjects are assessed by teacher comment only, with just two outcomes — Đạt or Chưa đạt. These include Physical Education, Art, Music, Fine Arts, Local Studies, and Experiential and Career Orientation Activities.
The one-subject rule
Circular 22 contains a provision that surprises people reading a Vietnamese report for the first time. If a student’s result falls two or more levels below what they would otherwise have achieved, and that drop is caused by a single subject alone, the level is raised back up by one.
So one weak subject cannot drag an otherwise strong student from Tốt all the way to Đạt. It is a deliberate cushion, and it means the printed level is not always a direct read-off from the subject averages.
Awards are separate from the level
At the end of the year the principal may award two commendations, and the criteria are stricter than the levels above:
- Học sinh Xuất sắc — conduct Tốt, academic Tốt, and at least six subjects with an annual average of 9.0 or above.
- Học sinh Giỏi — conduct Tốt and academic Tốt.
The old Học sinh Tiên tiến commendation was discontinued. Note that Xuất sắc and Giỏi now name awards, not academic levels — the same words that used to name the ranking. That is a common source of confusion when reading older and newer reports side by side.
Why old conversion tables no longer fit
Conversion tables for Vietnamese school grades circulating in study-abroad materials generally map marks to Xuất sắc, Giỏi, Khá, Trung bình and Yếu. Those are the Circular 58/2011 categories, replaced in 2021.
One such table, published by EducationUSA Vietnam, also has gaps: it lists 9.5–10, 8–9.0, 6–7.5, a single value of 5, and 0–4.5. A mark of 9.2, 7.8, 5.5 or 4.7 falls into no band at all, and “C” is a single point rather than a range.
The same document describes the Đạt threshold as no subject below 3.4; the regulation states 3.5. A small difference, but worth knowing if you are checking a borderline case against it.
None of this makes the wider EducationUSA guidance unreliable — its account of transcript certification and its warning against direct GPA conversion are both sound and useful. But for school-level grades, read the current levels rather than an old ranking table.
What this means for an application
- There is no school GPA in Vietnam. Reports give subject averages out of 10 and an overall level, not a cumulative grade point average.
- Tốt is the top level, not Xuất sắc. If a recent report says Xuất sắc, that is an award, which is a higher bar than the level.
- Check the year. Because of the phased rollout, reports from 2021 to 2024 may use either system depending on the year group.
- University grading is different again. Higher education runs on Circular 08/2021 with letter grades and a 4-point GPA — see Vietnam university grading.
Sources
- Circular 22/2021/TT-BGDĐT — Regulation on the assessment of lower and upper secondary students, issued 20 July 2021. Government legal document portal.
- EducationUSA Vietnam — Basic Information on Grading in Vietnam (US Embassy Hanoi, 2025 edition). Read in full. Source of the secondary conversion table discussed above.
School assessment rules are set by the Ministry of Education and Training. The report issued by the school is always the authoritative record.