Thanks to Jean Calder for her excellent article, Exams help destroy the joy of learning (The Argus, June 4).

English children are some of the most tested and examined in the world, yet there is no evidence this is socially or economically useful. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence of the harm labelling children as failures does, just because they are not good at taking exams.

I work with managers in a wide variety of organisations and there is no correlation between exam-passing ability and success. For instance, many brilliant entrepreneurs have never passed a public exam.

Last year, at the South Downs Learning Centre, there were two boys in one group. Both had been taken out of school by their parents as neither was able to learn effectively in that environment and neither was good at taking exams.

One boy developed his talents as an artist and decided to go to college to study art. He found he needed four GCSEs to enter so he chose the four he wanted, took them and passed them - never entering a classroom in the process. He is now doing well at college.

The other boy was never going to pass any GCSEs and didn't want to. However, he was incredibly talented mechanically and is now also doing well at college, despite never have taken a public exam.

Jean Calder is right to warn people of the unhealthy obsession with testing in this country. Education should help children to learn to lead a good life - whatever that may mean for them.

I know highly-qualified graduates who are miserable in their jobs and who find life difficult. And I know those who have never passed an exam in their lives who lead happy and fulfilling lives.

It's time adults stopped imposing such misery on children and woke up to the need to pay attention to the harm excessive focus on examinations does.

-Professor Ian Cunningham, Brighton