Our focus in 2012 continued to be on literacy, learning outcomes and contributing to competitiveness. These three key issues are where Pearson can make a unique contribution to people’s social and economic wellbeing on a global scale.
iLit is the first reading programme built and delivered completely on the iPad. Launched in the United States, it targets struggling readers aged 9 to 16, and supports, rewards and instructs based around the needs of the individual reader. iLit is currently available for readers aged 14 to 16.
Read more about iLit and the research evidence that underpins it on the iLit website
Giving a child a reading head-start before they start school helps build confident readers. New apps such as Ladybird’s ‘I’m ready for Phonics!’ gives parents new ways to help prepare a child for synthetic phonics learning at school.
Read more on the Ladybird website
Ensuring that every child can benefit from learning is a global challenge, and with over 60 million children not in school there is a need for urgent innovation. We believe that low-cost private education is part of the answer and that there is a need to encourage new ideas, models and ways of working. So, we have launched the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund whose purpose is to make minority equity investments in for-profit companies that help meet a burgeoning demand for affordable education services in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The fund launched in July 2012 with $15 million of initial Pearson capital, and made its first investment in a chain of private schools in Ghana.
Read more on the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund website
Pearson launched Next Generation BTECs, which meet new regulator and Department for Education criteria to make BTEC the best represented vocational qualification on the new accountability framework for schools in England.
Read more on the EdExcel BTEC site
This year, we supported the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in the development of The Learning Curve. The initiative brought together in one place a wide range of data sets designed to enable researchers and policy makers to correlate education outcomes with wider social and economic impact more easily than ever before. As international benchmarking of education systems has become ever more prevalent, The Learning Curve has the potential to add to our understanding of what successful education systems look like and how success can be achieved.
Read more on The Learning Curve website