The deeper the practical implementation of electronic school records goes, the more public concern continues to grow: Will electronic records truly make education more transparent and honest, or will they simply become a more sophisticated way of “beautifying” a system that remains insufficiently reliable?
Master Pham Thai Son, Director of the Admissions and Communications Center at Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade, addressed the issue directly when he stated: “People create electronic records, and people can also edit them. Technology does not inherently carry morality.”
According to Mr. Son, electronic transcripts may, in theory, help standardize data, enable faster retrieval, and reduce the risk of physical tampering. In practice, however, technology is only a tool. It cannot create honesty if the system itself is still under pressure to produce impressive results, or if those operating it remain driven by targets related to performance and pass rates.
For that reason, public concerns should not be seen as emotional or exaggerated reactions. On the contrary, they are necessary and reasonable precautions. Paper transcripts can be altered, but such manipulation often leaves traces. Electronic records, by contrast, if modified within a system that lacks proper oversight, may appear “clean” to the point of leaving no visible evidence. When misconduct becomes invisible, trust is often the first and greatest casualty.
At its core, an electronic school record is still only a technical tool designed to support data management and storage. From the perspective of university admissions, Mr. Son argued that it is still too early to assume that electronic transcripts are inherently more reliable than paper-based records.
An electronic school record is essentially just a technical tool designed to support data management and storage.
From the perspective of university admissions, Mr. Son believes it is still too early to assume that electronic transcripts are more reliable than paper records.
“Reliability does not lie in paper or in numbers. It lies in a very specific set of questions: who has the authority to edit the data, when it can be edited, why it is edited, and whether every change is properly recorded,” Mr. Son analyzed.
According to experts, the core issue is not simply whether school records should be digitized, but whether the system being digitized is already transparent enough.
If the governance foundation remains weak, and if performance pressure continues to dominate evaluation, then switching from paper records to electronic ones may only make the process of data manipulation more systematic, more sophisticated, and harder to detect.
“Honesty is not a feature pre-programmed into software,” Mr. Son emphasized.
Honesty can only be built through a combination of responsible people, effective control mechanisms, and clear accountability. If these conditions do not change, then regardless of whether transcripts are stored on paper, on a server, or in a modern digital system, the risk of data distortion still remains.
To prevent electronic transcripts from becoming merely a “digital version” of the achievement disease, Mr. Son said that two layers of protection are essential.
The first layer is technical. The system must include an undeletable edit log that clearly records who made a change, what was changed, when it happened, and for what reason. Access rights must be strictly controlled, ensuring that no single individual is allowed to both enter and approve grades. Transcript data should also be interconnected and cross-checked across multiple management levels to avoid a “single-point control” situation.
According to Master Pham Thai Son, Director of the Admissions and Communications Center at Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade, technology is not a “magic wand” that can solve every problem.
The second layer is policy. Legal responsibility must be clearly defined for any act of interfering with academic records, including any form of “legalizing” manipulated grades.
At the same time, the Ministry of Education and Training needs to maintain a clear and consistent stance: academic records are an important source of reference, but they should not be the only ticket to university admission. Once academic records are no longer treated as a decisive “lifeline,” the pressure to inflate grades will naturally decrease.
Furthermore, the way educational quality is assessed also needs to change. Absolute scores cannot continue to be the only measure. Local authorities should not treat the percentage of students with good or excellent academic records as an administrative achievement indicator.
Universities must also use academic records wisely by combining them with multiple admission criteria, rather than unintentionally sending the message that high scores alone are enough.
If these issues are not addressed at the root, electronic academic records may struggle to become the transparent tool that many expect. Instead, they risk becoming merely a technological coating over an old and persistent problem: the achievement disease. Everything may appear cleaner, faster, and more modern, but trust could become more fragile than ever.
Technology can change the way education is managed, but only ethics and governance mechanisms can determine its integrity. And that is the challenge that cannot be avoided.
HUIT Website Editorial BoardAdmissions & Communications Center