Edexcel vs AQA and OCR in the publishing market
Educational publishing is big business and the major players are huge companies like Wolters Kluwer, Reed Elsevier and Pearson. Competition between them is intense and one way publishers have sought to generate a competitive edge has been by signing up to endorsement deals with the three exam boards (OCR, AQA and Edexcel). The first to do so was Harcourt (Reed Elsevier) who under the leadership of Bob Osborne entered into an arrangement with Edexcel to endorse their secondary maths programme.
Today, two out of the three exam boards are still pursuing this strategy, with Nelson Thornes recently signing an exclusive deal with the AQA and OCR also admitting they have agreements with various publishers. The only exam board no longer doing this is Edexcel whose Director of Strategy and Development is - Bob Osborne.
When interviewed, Mr Osborne acknowledged that Edexcel was now moving beyond its old business model based solely on examinations to one where it also competes with publishers and content developers. Rather than having an unfair advantage, he said that Edexcel was no longer endorsing individual publishers, but would work with anyone to ensure their material met Edexcel’s exam specifications. He described this as, ‘an open access level playing field’; the deal he had done for Harcourt had been appropriate at the time, but the industry has moved on. He said he believed Edexcel’s new strategy was far more in tune with the current and future realities of the educational publishing and assessment markets.
This may not sound like a revolution, but it heralds a shake up amongst the exam boards whose revenues are likely to come under increasing pressure. Not only has Ken Boston, head of the QCA, suggested that students should sit fewer exams, his organisation has also been tasked by the DfES to review the steep price rises in exam fees over the last few years.
In the UK exam market, Edexcel have a huge advantage over AQA and OCR. All three will have to make enormous investments in technology, but only Edexcel are part of a listed company with superior access to capital who can also amortise the cost of this investment across their international assessment business, particularly in the US.