Sir, – The Leaving Certificate exams take place next month and every year at around that time there is quite a lot of negative coverage of those exams in the media. I sat the Leaving Cert on three separate occasions, the first in the “normal” way as a teenager and each of the other two as a mature student. While I didn’t do well in that first exam, I did do well in the other two and got a place in college. I graduated and later became a teacher of several different subjects and I’ve done a variety of other very interesting work over the years.I wouldn’t have had all that success without completing that first Leaving Cert exam, as a teenager.Just getting to and getting through the Leaving Cert exams is a great achievement and it’s a pity the media don’t emphasise that more. By the same token, it’s disappointing to see people of influence in our society dismissing the exams process and formal education, as a whole. The State exams are a great exercise in thinking, structuring and acting in a focused way. The current State exams process also offers great experience in “seeing a project through to the end”. There is education in every experience and every experience is an education, including the exams process in its current form. Whatever one’s personal opinions of exams and formal education, please respect those who are sitting the forthcoming exams and please also respect their teachers and their parents. – Yours, etc,TIM BUCKLEY,White Street,Cork.