The only exceptions will be schools in remote areas where transportation is poor.

“It depends on the province,” Nghia said. “If there is any problem, they are supposed to inform the ministry without delay.”

The bulk of the proctoring will be done by teachers as always, but those schools that are not in groups of three due to geographical difficulties will be assigned inspectors and proctors from various universities and colleges.

Another change will be the swapping of completed exam papers for marking purposes. This does not automatically mean that two adjacent provinces will exchange papers; there could be three or even four different provinces marking each others’ papers, Mr. Nghia said.

Deciding which provinces will swap with which depends on their having roughly the same number of papers to mark, he said.

Of course, places that have a huge number of papers to swap, like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, will share the load with several nearby provinces.

The ministry has already done the marking allocation, but will not release the details until the exact number of examinees has been ascertained.

The proposed changes in the interest of security caused quite a fuss when they were announced last month.

Provincial bureaucrats pointed out that the new system would cause problems for proctors and students alike, not least being the difficulty of traveling to different schools in the less developed parts of Vietnam where the roads are rough and sometimes cut off by landslides in the wet season.

They are also concerned about security and want the ministry to issue more guidelines on the safe transportation of completed exam papers to other provinces.