Sir, – I note your LinkedIn poll asking whether students with dyslexia should get extra points in the Leaving Certificate. I believe your question is far too shallow. Our examination system is a failed experiment, and that’s what should be addressed.We have built an entire educational infrastructure around one thing: the ability to recall and reproduce memorised information under timed pressure. We call this “assessment”. It isn’t. It is a measure of a very narrow cognitive skill, and one that has little bearing on ability, intelligence or potential.As a dyslexic person, I experience this directly. Short-term memory retrieval under pressure, the core skill the Leaving Certificate tests, is precisely where many of us struggle. Yet long-term memory, pattern recognition, creative problem-solving and lateral thinking? These are areas where the dyslexic brain frequently excels. The current system is almost perfectly designed to hide that.Dyslexia Ireland has done tremendous work advocating for accommodations such as extra time. That advocacy matters. But extra time or extra points are patches on a broken system, not a fix.The best description I have ever heard of the Leaving Certificate is this: a handwriting time trial. We have surely outgrown it.What we actually need is a fundamental redesign of assessment, one that measures learning, ability and the capacity to apply knowledge, rather than the ability to regurgitate it on demand.Portfolio assessment. Project-based evaluation. Oral components. Competency frameworks. These are not radical ideas; they exist in pockets around the world. What is missing is the courage to rebuild the system around them.The country that cracks this will not just produce better outcomes for students with dyslexia. They will produce better outcomes for everyone and gain a genuine competitive advantage in doing so. As we so often say: “What’s good for dyslexics can be good for everyone.”This conversation is only just beginning. – Yours etc,DAVE CORMACK Leixlip,Co Kildare.