Welcome

I am an educational entrepreneur, edtech specialist and investor. The views expressed here are my own and are often blunt and irreverent.

 

researchED 2022

For the second time, I shelled out some of my own hard-earned cash to attend researchED 2022. Instead of last year’s schlep to Stratford, this year was an 88 bus from Westminster straight to Parliament Hills Schools in Hampstead. Arriving early allowed me the luxury of breakfast and coffee at a local independent deli, something […]

28 days ago Education More
 

Don’t waste your time reading the DfE’s latest edtech report

Making sense of the business of edtech has always been a challenge. It’s why I set up the Assignment Report in 2005 and why I read the DfE’s most recent edtech report, published in June, with interest. Business Intelligence (BI) is weak in most education and edtech companies and is too rarely integrated effectively into […]

2 months ago Education More
 

1520 600gm Mangos (what it means in China)

For governments worldwide, education is a major policy and spending area, so it’s inevitable they try to influence it as much as their remit allows. In most Western countries, scope is often limited by the structural and segmented nature of learning, e.g. Pre-school, K12, HE, FE, corporate learning, etc.  In China, however, the government (the […]

2 months ago Education More
 

An existential threat to Chinese edu companies?

The other 261 Chinese companies listed in the US (those on the NYSE alone have a market cap of about £1.1tn) are facing another existential threat – expulsion from US capital markets in 2024 unless they comply with the US Security and Exchange Commission’s new auditing standards. In May the SEC announced 80 NYSE-listed Chinese […]

3 months ago Education More
 

Edtech as crypto?

Late last year (2021) Menten Holding Group Ltd (previously called EdtechX and then Menten EdtechX) was IBIS Capital’s first NASDAQ education SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company), announced the launch of a “new business initiative” around blockchain and cryptocurrency. The EdtechX SPAC listed in Jan 2020 at 435 cents and now trades at about 1.48c, so […]

3 months ago Education More
 

BETT(er)?

BETT 2022 was great. Despite interminable Covid and controversy over the Russian business of owner Hyve, I think exhibitors and attendees were overjoyed to feel life was returning to normal. It was the feeling I saw in Feb 2021 when a virtual attendee at the Sydney Morning Herald Schools Summit, watching people in a normal […]

5 months ago Education More
 

Make edtech love not war

The British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), founded almost 50 years ago, is the UK’s main education business membership association. Today BESA plays a significant role in education and increasingly edu politics, but is it overreaching its remit? Aside from promoting members’ direct commercial interests, BESA’s Articles of Association (updated 2018) note that it will, “promulgate […]

6 months ago Education More
 

Ethics and edtech

Edtech and education are as full of hypocrisy, cant and mendacious action as any part of the economy. The sooner we accept this, the better we can, as individuals and as organisations,examine and calibrate our attitudes and ideas. The recent possible boycott BETT, is but one example. I had a minor role in raising the […]

6 months ago Education More
 

Can AI predict autism with 96% accuracy?

Can the AI edtech software from UK company Century Tech, predict autism with 96% accuracy? My thoughts.

8 months ago Education More
 

NTP 2.1 to Pupil Premium 2.0 via BDU?

I expect Randstad will soon make big changes to NTP 2.0, specifically dumping their new school and tutor matching and management platform that has added an unnecessary layer of complexity (and costs) for providers and schools together with a tweaked contract (the existing one has been described as unenforceable) that will allow several of the […]

1 year ago Education More