WE have been witnessing a heated debate about the quality of our education system recently. This, as we all know, is not so surprising when we see that only two pupils qualified for admission into the English Department of Dhaka University. Although it is questionable as to whether the quality of education in our universities is up to the mark if we compare it with any respected international standard let us focus our attention on only primary, secondary and higher secondary level.

It is rather saddening to see the so-called 'experts' speaking in talk shows on "how an 8th grader can solve the admission test questions of Dhaka University" because of the sheer fact that it's not based on any informed research. I think this is where our talk shows have failed. These experts and talk shows certainly have good intentions but they are failing to create any serious and reliable debate because there cannot be any serious debate about the quality of our education system" without a comprehensive research based data.

We need to understand that a PhD in English does not automatically qualify a person to talk about "what is quality of education" or "what the best education method is." In a bestcase scenario, we can count their opinions as personal but uninformed and over-exaggerated that will create only fear and will not help in any way to improve our education system. Having said this, it is worth noting that these people did have some excellent points about what is wrong with our current system, such as the over-emphasis on grades in public examinations; but we need more informed debates where right stakeholders such as education researchers and government officials should run the show.

To be honest, I personally believe the introduction of "creative system” and the attempt to debunk dependency on coaching centres and guidebooks are the hallmarks of this current education system. On the other hand, over-emphasis on grades, poor infrastructure and lack of quality teachers is where we desperately need to revamp. Moreover, it is a rather complex task to observe a child's growth from his/her childhood, and evaluating a child's merit or competence through just an exam is unjustifiable. Finally, in lieu of the current debates on education quality, I would like to mention some factual information which should shed some new light about the matter.

Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a highly respected educational assessment programme which has been organised by OECD since 2001 and which aims to assess the competencies of 15 year olds in reading, mathematics and science (see www.oecd.org/pisa). According to PISA publications, Finland is now considered a major international leader in education. According to PISA report, Finland has done remarkably well in all PISA assessments over the past decade and it performance is notable for its consistency across schools. In Finland, the gap between the top and bottomachieving students is unusually modest. Within this system, children do not start school until they are seven, they rarely take exams or do homework before they are into their teens, and are not measured at all for the first six years of their education. According to OECD report, both regular class teacher (grades 1-6) and subject teachers (7-9) enjoy enormous degree of autonomy and the national core curriculum functions as more of a guideline where teachers are free to decide what they will teach and how. They select their own textbooks and other instructional materials and assessments in Finnish schools are a classroom responsibility. However, a significant focus in Finish education is also to assist students to learn how to assess their own learning.

Finland is not among the high spending per pupil OECD countries, but nearly all of the money spent on education is focused on schools and classrooms. Teachers are given the same status as doctors and lawyers in Finland and prospective teaching candidates are required to go through a teacher preparation programme where they are expected to learn through research based dissertation, and there is a strong focus on developing pedagogical content knowledge. They also receive good training on diagnosing students with learning difficulties and are required to complete a clinical component as part ofthe programme.

The national evaluation council of Finland is focused more on the evaluation of national policies rather than the performance of the schools. There is a national matriculation exam (Like SSC) at the end of the upper secondary school but its role is to certify what the student knows and not to assess the quality of his or her school. Assessments are done at the classroom level with a lot of diagnostic or formative assessment data and individual problems are brought to light through programmes like meetings of pupil's care group. Education stakeholders in Finland maintain that market-based competition and choice with more standardised testing than students evidently require would not be good for schools, and the success of high stake testing policy is determined by whether it assists positively in students' learning, not whether it increases student scores on a particular test.

On a final note, I would like to suggest a scientific trial and error based learning in our schools where students would not be punished for failing a subject. In our current exam policy students are forced to wait for a full year to repeat an exam if they fail in one subject. Remember, failing in science is seen as opportunity to improve, and is thus accepted, not condemned. With new innovative initiatives, it should not be difficult for a country like Bangladesh to provide more customised service with the help of information technologies, and evaluating a student's progress will be more accurate if we invest more on developing digital evaluation technologies at classroom level and on developing the quality of ourteachers.The writer Is MSc. Business Administration, Linkoping University, Sweden.