Watch out - the BTECs are coming!

Its often work digging through investor presentations to get a sense of where the growth areas are in a market - here is a good example…

Pearson PLC is one of the world’s largest media groups. It owns Edexcel (the exam board), the Financial Times, the Economist, and a substantial portfolio of educational publishing businesses and titles in the US. I thought I’d leaf through the presentation that Pearson gave to their investors recently to see if there were any useful market nuggets I could gather.

I came across one chart in particular that seemed to hit home. Buried deep in one of the appendices, it shows the growth in the number of candidates in the UK registered to take BTEC courses (run by Edexcel). The growth rate is impressive and sustained. We’ve certainly come across this as tutor2u has begun to develop resources to support BTEC courses - lots of pent-up demand and enthusiasm from centres. For example, we’ve notices a large number of UK schools opting to ditch GCSE Business / BusComm and offer BTEC First in Business as an alternative.

Here is that chart: