Labour’s VAT policy for private schools will hit every homeowner and bankrupt local councils

How Labour's VAT plans for private schools will bankrupt local government & hit homeowners in their already stretched pockets

2 years ago Education More
 

The Elevator Shaft Pitch

99% of adults know what an elevator shaft is even if they have never peered down into one. It’s a concrete cylinder in which elevators ascend and descend; elevators being one of the safest methods of modern transport. However, should you fall into an elevator shaft, you are I’m afraid shafted, as a fall from […]

2 years ago Education More
 

Betting on BETT

A year ago, Providence Equity Partners (PEP) made a £481m bet on Hyve when they took them private. Back in 2018 ITE paid Ascentail £300m for BETT and several other exhibitions so that’s a significant hike. Given the size of the bet on BETT, it came as no surprise when the event’s new ‘Portfolio Director’ […]

2 years ago Education More
 

€13m French AI maths tutoring tender

For those serious about edtech and the business of education, I’d suggest subscribing to Tenderlake (not an investor) as it not only gives you access to tenders in the UK, EU and beyond, it also provides cutting-edge tools to help you analyse, apply for and win these opportunities. It costs from £2353 (UK & Ireland) […]

2 years ago Education More
 

2023 in Review – a few not entirely random thoughts

In my experience the business of edtech (education) swings wildly between the apogee of happiness, fulfilment and inspiration, and perigee of confusion, rancour and despair. For me 2023 was no different, with some great ideas and people and some tough choices and disappointments. At the top of the scale it was meeting and getting to […]

2 years ago Education More
 

Myopia everywhere; political and economic sense nowhere

Last week I attended the Education Summit by kind courtesy of Harry Hyman and his team at Nexus Media Group. I rarely get invited, let alone actually want to attend most education events, but I am glad I went to this one. Most gatherings of the great, good and infamous of education and edtech are […]

2 years ago Education More
 

Rebuild schools or go virtual?

The current controversy over schools closed due to buildings using RAAC (Reinforced Autoclave Aerated Concrete) is an interesting one. Of the UK’s 22,000 schools, around 5% have so far been identified as using RAAC but the overwhelming majority of buildings with RAAC are in the other parts of the government sector, particularly hospitals, and the […]

3 years ago Education More
 

VAT on private school fees

I have been trying to write something sensible about the Labour Party’s policy of applying VAT to private school fees and removing their charitable business rates discount (80%). But after reading several long and boring reports, tracking the issue back to 1997 and writing over 5000 words, I’m still struggling to find clarity. Stepping back, […]

3 years ago Education More
 

What would Jeremy think?

In 2019 the Labour Party, then led by Jeremy Corbyn, pledged at its annual conference to, ‘abolish private schools and integrate them into the government sector’. This spawned an extensive social media campaign with the hashtag #AbolishEton’, which was for a short time led by an activist teacher from London called Holly Rigby. Ms Rigby, […]

3 years ago Education More
 

The lack of innovation in edtech

A week ago Oak National Academy announced the world’s first totally open source curriculum, as well as promising to open up their underlying source code. I could bore you with the minutiae of Open Government Licensing and how it’s the UK equivalent to Creative Commons By Attribution (CC-BY 4.0) as well as about the MIT […]

3 years ago Education More