CUP aims to double education division

Cambridge University Press has unveiled aggressive growth plans for its newly restructured £60m educational division, aiming to boost turnover by between 75% and 100% over the next five years.

The publisher has brought all its educational products under a new umbrella unit, Cambridge Learning , and taken on 60 new staff over the past two years in line with a wider strategy to focus on the business’ more commercial properties.

The unit represents around half of the £120m CUP business , with the rest made up by academic products. But Andrew Gilfillan, m.d. of Cambridge Learning, said it would soon become the majority part. “The plan is for Learning to overtake academic in terms of growth and revenues because the market opportunities are greater,” he said. “We are targeting growth of 12% to 15% year-on-year for the next five years.”

Cambridge Learning is partnering with other companies, including Microsoft, Intel and Cambridge Assessments (also owned by Cambridge University), to provide assessment, blended learning and teacher training packages to help win more business in foreign territories. “The Cambridge brand is a very powerful, internationally recognised brand,” Gilfillan said. “It stands up particularly well in the English-language teaching markets, and that opens the door to many other educational opportunities.”

The company has launched a joint venture in Saudi Arabia with local education company Obeikan, and is targeting swift expansion in other Arab territories. “Pearson have been successful in the Gulf and we will be going up against them,” Gilfillan said.

It also has its sights set on India and on developing Asian markets such as Vietnam, Thailand and China, as well as the region’s traditional ELT strongholds in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

“The drive for English-language learning is accelerating, especially in markets like Korea where the parental pressure for children to learn English is huge,” Gilfillan said.