A news item that appeared after the Secondary School Certificate (SSC) results in a Marathi newspaper has given me sleepless nights. As many as 3.6 lakh students who appeared for the SSC examinations were unable to clear it.

Three years ago, two boys and a girl from my chawl appeared for the SSC exams. While two of them cleared it easily, the third one didn't make it. Two homes were bustling with joy, distributing pedas, while the door of the third house remained closed the entire day. I visited them and tried to reason with them that it was not the end of the road for their son. But they were in no mood to listen or talk. They were mourning as if someone had died. There was no food cooked in that house that day. And the father made a terrible statement, "It would have been better if he was never born."

I can see a similar situation in those 3.6 lakh students' homes. Their families must be under great duress and the students' lives filled with darkness. What is their crime? This massacre takes place every year, yet that abattoir called the SSC Board keeps flourishing. Education experts conveniently turn a blind eye to all this, which is appalling.

MID-DAY carried a news item on its front page, about how six students tried to end their lives after poor results. I had tears in my eyes when I saw Archana Patil's photo. The board had already indulged in mass killing. The blame was, however, being put on the young boys and girls. Parents, teachers and the education board was saying it. Why, the education minister even proudly declared that 3.6 lakh students had failed.

The truth was that the parents, the teachers, in fact the entire education system had failed. But nobody is willing to shoulder the blame. Principals of the students who topped the merit list got credit for the success, but photos of the teachers from the same school with the failed students would have made the picture complete.

Why do we play with our children's lives? Almost all schools promote students who have failed in one, two or three subjects. Several schools offer grace marks. Then why have a different set of rules only for the SSC exams? Another side of the story is that several thousands of these students had never failed till their SSC exams. Then why do they fail in the SSC exams?

Some schools have a 40 per cent success rate, some have 15 per cent students clearing the exams while some have no students who pass. Why then should grants be offered to such schools? Why should we waste our money on such schools? Why do we cheat these students? We must accept the bitter truth that the life of the education board is finished. It has become a farce.

The SSC examination does not help at all in building a student's career. Once upon a time this examination was of great importance. Not any more. Yet innocent kids end their lives because they have failed in it. The other failed students live lives of the dead. The culprits, however, go scot-free. If we want to put an end to this massacre, we must abolish the concepts of merit and failures.

Because the parrot called the education board has long been dead. Why should we cheat ourselves by continuing to feed it?