Pearson’s Plans for 2025: Make Sure You Are Seated When You Read This
Pearson has plans for the future. Its plans involve students, education, and profits. Pearson, of course, is the British mega-publishing corporation that has an all-encompassing vision of monetizing every aspect of education.
Two researchers, Sam Sellar and Anna Hogan, have reviewed Pearson’s plans. It is a frightening portrait of corporate privatization of teaching and of student data, all in service of private profit.
Pearson 2025: Transforming teaching and privatising education data, by Sam Sellar and Anna Hogan, discusses the potentially damaging effects of the company’s strategy for public education globally. It raises two main issues of concern in relation to the integrity and sustainability of schooling:
- the privatization of data infrastructure and data, which encloses innovation and new knowledge about how we learn, turning public goods into private assets; and
- the transformation and potential reduction of the teaching profession, diminishing the broader purposes and outcomes of public schooling.
You can also find a radio program featuring one of the researchers which discusses these issues at http://www.radiolabour.net/hogan-140519.html
Pearson’s Plans for 2025: Make Sure You Are Seated When You Read This | Diane Ravitch's blog