Pearson and McGraw Hill: GLOBAL EDUCATION AS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

from Globalization 101, a project of the State University of New York | Issues in Depth > Education > Pearson and McGraw-Hill http://bit.ly/16jRzkm

Like many education-related services corporations the work of the McGraw-Hill Companies and Pearson Education, expands far beyond education. The intersection of education, technology, and communications creates opportunities to provide a host of international educational services of which these companies look to take full advantage.  The mission statements of these two companies provide a relevant perspective on the globalization of education.  Historically a locally rooted endeavor, education is now being increasingly privatized, packaged, and marketed in unconventional ways.  
A glance at Pearson’s website demonstrates the company’s international and educational breadth as they capitalize on growth in this sector.  The London-based company states on its website:

Educating 100 million people worldwide, Pearson is a global leader in educational publishing, providing scientifically research-based print and digital programs to help student learn at their own pace, in their own way. . .and offers the most comprehensive range of educational programs, in all subjects, for every age and level of student, from preK-12 through higher education and on into professional life. Our unparalleled businesses and brands include Prentice Hall, Longman, Scott Foresman, Addison Wesley, Allyn & Bacon, Benjamin Cummings, PASeries, ELLis, Celebration Press, PEMSolutions, SuccessMaker, Waterford, and Family Education Network. Pearson’s other primary operations include the Financial Times Group and the Penguin Group (Pearson Education, 2009).

Likewise, the global nature of the McGraw-Hill Companies gives the company a substantial edge in providing educational services.  As a multi-national corporation (MNC), McGraw-Hill fully grasps the type of worker required in modern global economy.  Perhaps for this reason it is appropriate that such a corporation provides educational services.   As it is with Pearson, so too is the international scope of McGraw-Hill easily recognized on the company website: 

The McGraw-Hill Companies is driving the financial services, education, and business information markets through leading brands such as Standard & Poor’s, BusinessWeek, and McGraw-Hill Education.  McGraw-Hill aligns with three enduring global needs:

• the need for Capital
• the need for Knowledge
• the need for Transparency (McGraw Hill, 2009).

These are the foundations necessary to foster economic growth and to allow individuals, markets, and societies to reach their full potential.

McGraw Hill’s three “enduring global needs” of capital, knowledge and transparency, echo the sentiments of economists, politicians, and academics as competition within global markets continues to rise.  With increased competition at all levels of society as a result of globalization, education is recognized as one means of creating a competitive advantage.

The stated efforts of Pearson and McGraw-Hill demonstrate the nature and model in which modern education is expected to function in order to fulfill society’s new demands.  We now need a global education system to create a 21st century workforce that will be competing within a global economy.  In short, education must follow suit in the global evolutionary process.