The media and education group, which also owns publisher
Penguin Books, said that changes to the way apprenticeship schemes are funded
had had a “radical” impact on demand for the courses offered by Pearson in
Practice, which are tailored to specific industries and each last between three
months and a year.
Around 5,000 apprentices signed up to the schemes will be
farmed out to other providers, and around 500 staff, largely based in
Nottingham, Manchester and Banbury, have been put into consultation over their
jobs.
Pearson paid £95m for Pearson in Practice, then called
Melorio, but is expected to take a £120m hit from the closure of the business.
John Fallon, who took over as chief executive of Pearson at
the start of this year, said: “We very much regret the decision to plan for
closure but we believe we have explored and exhausted all alternatives.”
The company said in October that it would put Pearson in
Practice under review because of the changes to the industry.
For a long time, companies hiring apprentices were
effectively forced to use third-party providers like Pearson in Practice in
order to secure Government funding. However, they are now allowed to bid for
funding for an apprenticeship scheme and use that money to pay a third-party
company to provide the training, or organise the training themselves.
The change in policy was introduced in a pilot scheme last year
and is expected to be formalised shortly.
Pearson is in talks with further education colleges to take
on some of Pearson in Practice’s assets, as well as its students.
Separately, Pearson has denied a report in the South China
Morning Post that the company has started sounding out potential buyers in
China to buy the Financial Times.
Speculation that the group will sell the newspaper has
stepped up a gear since Mr Fallon’s predecessor, Dame Marjorie Scardino,
announced last year that she would be stepping down.
The group has been clear that it wants to focus on its
fast-growing education business, but the Financial Times muddies the waters for
investors.
The newspaper is thought to be worth around £1bn, but could
go for as much as double that as a trophy asset, despite its falling
readership.
Source: 7 January 2013, The Telegraph by Katherine Rushton,
Media, Telecoms and Technology Editor
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