2007 has been an eventful year for UK education. Some of the highlights have been:
- Riverdeep’s acquisition of Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt
- Thomson and Reed Elsevier’s exits from the education market
- The sale of the TES to Charterhouse Capital Partners
- International expansion by for-profit schools chains like Cognita
- An invasion of the UK childcare scene by Australia’s ABC Learning
- BECTA’s reporting of Microsoft to the Office of Fair Trading
- BBC jam’s demise
- The spliting of the DfES into DCSF and DIUS
- BPP being awarded the power to award degrees
- Holidaybreak’s purchase of PGL and NST
- The creation of even more educational quangos.
These are just a few of the highlights of 2007, but looking forward I think that 2008 may well eclipse this by a significant margin. While the international economic outlook may be bleaker, education will continue to concentrate the minds of politicians, business people and parents like never before.
Rather than just reporting on these changes, we are also changing. The assignment report has now been sold by MediaTaylor to Meissa Limited. Meissa has been created by Ed Tranham to provide research, analysis and commentary on the UK education market together with specialist corporate finance and strategic advice to companies operating within the sector. I will remain actively involved as a director of Meissa and as the Executive Editor of the assignment report.
Between us Ed and I have almost 40 years of publishing, banking, IT and education experience, have both held senior positions in several well-known companies and have experience of education in Asia, the US, Australia, and Europe.
I am excited about what 2008 holds for UK education businesses. Yes, there will be significant challenges, but equally great opportunities. It’s now up to all of us to grasp these and to build our businesses, in what is surely the most important and exciting industry of all.
