EVERY year we see the same images of the agony and ecstasy as the next generation of University students finally receive their A-level results.

Newspapers across the country publish photographs of the successful candidates embracing each other and leaping for joy while those that haven't made the grade sit slumped and dejected, heads tearfully in hands.

Yet very often the difference between success and perceived "failure" is no more than a C instead of a B or a D instead of a C. Although, having said that, with more students achieving A grades than ever before how long will it be before anything as pathetic as a C or D grade is considered borderline educationally sub-normal? That's how stupid it is.

It's extraordinary that the pressure on school children to pass at the very highest level is so great that when they merely miss out on racking up the necessary qualification for their university of choice they are made to feel wretched and useless. Just passing the exam is an achievement and should be celebrated as such.

Coming from a generation that considered exam results to be far less crucial than those who police the pressure-cooker world that exists in schools today, I find it hard to understand why education has turned into such a relentless competition.

Teachers and pupils are driven to produce ever better results but sadly to achieve this they have been forced to switch from actually teaching anything of any practical use to drilling pupils to pass exams.

Higher than ever numbers of A rate passes might sound impressive but where are all the geniuses that such levels of performance would seem to indicate?

I don't seem to meet very many of them although I'm sorry to say I've met plenty of graduates whose abilities, even in terms of basic reading and writing, are decidedly questionable.

I left school 35 years ago with a handful of A levels but instead of going to university I chose to travel across the world visiting the Far East: hanging out with American troops on R&R from Vietnam in Hong Kong, bartering for a disgusting Afghan coat made of uncured goat skin ( later to become so rancid it had to be burnt) in New Delhi, spending time in Iran. Now that was an education.

I later gained an honours degree in Art History from the Open University. But that was for me, not for a school, not for the Government, not for my family and not for my employers. I never even told them about it.

In fact never, not once in my life, has anyone asked to see a single one of my exam certificates. At my first job they took my word for it. I proved my worth and that was that. Frankly that's the way it should be.