The Goddess of English

It may be the lingua franca of business and, increasingly education, but just how important is English? There are 2 billion people expected to speak English by 2020, but even these numbers don’t show just how vital English has become to some groups. For example in Bankra, Northern India, Angrezi Devi is the Goddess of […]

11 years ago Education More

Australia’s VET sector – success or mirage?

While Australia is better known in international education circles as a major player in the international HE market, it is less well-known in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector. Locally, the government sector runs under the acronym of TAFE (Technical and Further Education) with private players operating as Registered Training Organisations (RTOs). Traditionally dominated […]

11 years ago Education More

Pearson – fire staff, shift others and get a tax break!

A few months ago, as part of an outsourcing deal with IBM India, Pearson laid off staff from its Global Shared Operations and Corporate Finance Division in New Jersey. Bad news for the workers, but not unusual in the highly competitive global economy. The difference in this story is that a group of the workers […]

11 years ago Education More

Pearson and the boundaries of thought leadership

Businesses do many things to build their brands, reputations and profits. In my 25 years of working in marketing, PR and the media ‘ideas’ come and go and just as frequently reappear again, often with a new name and acronym. In the last decade many large organisations have hitched their corporate wagons to the concept […]

11 years ago Education More

Serious gaming, to the stars and beyond?

Serious Games and Educational Games, are oxymoron’s to many gamers, educationalists and parents, but maybe not for much longer after the University of Washington’s announcement about how gamers had helped researchers solve a decade old complex scientific problem.   Using an online game called FoldIt, gamers took just three weeks to accurately map the structure […]

11 years ago Education More

Kip McGrath revisited

When I wrote about the travails of listed tutoring company Kip McGrath (KME on the ASX) it seemed they had been thrown a lifeline by another Australian company Editure Limited. Since then I have received several emails from current and former franchisees, prompting me to take another look at the company. What I have found […]

11 years ago Education More

US Federal Trade Commission proposes changes to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

Somini Sengupta has written an interesting article in The New York Times that should be of interest to all education companies who do business in the United States. The proposed changes to  COPPA, whose focus is protecting the personal information of children, particularly those under the age of 13,  aim to extend coverage to the […]

11 years ago Education More

Wireless Generation and education – a game of snakes and ladders for News Corp. in New York

In New York, the state comptroller, Thomas P DiNapoli, has just yanked a $27m contract from Wireless Generation, the education company that News. Corp paid $360m for. Why? According to Mr DiNapoli, ‘We believe the record remains incomplete with respect to the vendor responsibility issues involving the parent company of Wireless Generation’. So rather than […]

11 years ago Education More

Kip McGrath – punt, bunt or bury?

Tutoring is a massive international business with few international brands. Kumon is one of those brands; arguably Kip McGrath, the listed Australian tutoring franchise company, is another. The question is, with its shares at rock bottom, a disastrous foray into higher education, and the tutoring industry in transformation, will Kip McGrath still be around in a […]

11 years ago Education More

Pearson or another to make a bid for RM?

RM is in the midst of a perfect storm –a plummeting share price (down almost 13% at lunchtime today),  falling sales, downgraded forecasts, savagely cost cutting, a weak currency and a management admission that,’ shareholders should anticipate a potentially difficult and unpredictable period in the near term’.  Add to this mix the growing chaos on […]

11 years ago Education More