Pearson India set to launch K-12 online private school

Educational services firm Pearson India will launch virtual international school for K-12, International Connections Academy, in India soon.

The curriculum will follow the accredited US education and graduates will be awarded a US-recognised diploma. The project will be launched on Monday.

Vikas Singh, Managing Director, said the company would launch the pilot of the project initially. Prior to the launch, Pearson India did a market study on the demand for programmes in the country and found that there is indeed a latent need. Stating that the model was a success globally, Singh said the company is hoping to replicate the success in India.

“There is a market for such platforms in India,” he added. According to information given in the Pearson India official website, over 1,500 students are enrolled in the programme globally. The annual tuition fees for primary, middle and high school are ₹2.96 lakh, ₹3.57 lakh and 4.17 lakh, respectively.

With increasing technology adoption in education space, the company is focussing on strengthening its digital platform MyPedia, a learning solution that is a combination of textbooks, interactive digital content and assessment tool, for schools. The tool was developed in India and the company is exploring opportunities to implement it in overseas schools in South Africa, West Asia and Brazil.

Though the basic format remains the same, the company had to makes changes to suit the target market. Singh said, “The education system in India is different from that of other countries in terms of language, curriculum and evaluation system.” For example, while Indian students are assessed based on board exams at the end of the year or semester, in Brazil, education is a continuous process. “We had to incorporate such changes in MyPedia,” he added.

In school space, the clients are primarily English medium schools that follow CBSE and ICSE syllabus. In future, the company is also looking to add State board education to their portfolio. But the challenge is the enormous resource required to create content across all grades covering all disciplines. “Yes, State board is on the anvil, but may be not immediately,” Singh added.

It is also for the same reason why the company is not looking at creating Indian language course books. “We do have limited Indian language books for certain courses. But from investment point of view, we are not looking at that segment,” he added.

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