Development of Online Education Network Stepped Up

Pearson PLC
6 March 2000


PEARSON STEPS UP DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE EDUCATION NETWORK 

Pearson plc, the international media company, announced today a series of
agreements that will accelerate the development of its online education
network. 

Pearson and America Online, Inc., the world's leading interactive services
company, have reached a preliminary agreement to serve as a framework for
developing a relationship. It is envisaged that the relationship would
establish Pearson's education network as the preferred supplier of educational
content and online learning tools with AOL providing carriage for Pearson's
education network on the AOL service and other America Online, Inc. brands.
The two companies will also investigate opportunities to collaborate on the
development of a curriculum architecture and a range of select education
tools. The Pearson education network will also be available through the
Internet at large.

Pearson has also announced today the first of a number of strategic alliances
with, and equity investments in, leading Internet educational companies which
will further strengthen the development of its education network. The
alliances are with:

--SCORE! Learning Inc., at www.eSCORE.com, a national provider of after-school
learning centres and online learning services.

--Copernicus Education Gateway, at www.edgate.com, which provides customised,
local, online access to education resources and activities for kindergarten to
12th grade.

--Blackboard, Inc., at www.blackboard.com, a leading Internet infrastructure
company. Its software platform powers online teaching environments at over
1,800 colleges and universities and in 70 countries.

Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson, said: 'Around the world, public
and private resources devoted to education are rising rapidly as individuals,
companies and nations strive to be part of an increasingly brain-powered
world. The Internet personalises learning to individual needs in a way that
has never been possible before. We aim to create an online learning
environment that transforms the educational opportunities open to all of us at
every stage of our lives, wherever we live in the world'.

For further information:

John Fallon/Kate Inverarity
Pearson plc
+ 44 171 411 2310
Roy Winnick
Kekst & Co.
+ 1 212 521 4842

The education network, to be launched this year, aims to be the leading online
learning portal.  It will supplement in-school activities from elementary
school through to adult learning, with both ongoing education and professional
training. The portal will draw on content, tools and distribution channels
from Pearson businesses, and incorporate content from other leading print and
Internet educational and consumer publishers, both within and outside Pearson.


The network will earn revenues from a mix of individual subscriptions and site
licences from schools and e-commerce and advertising revenues in the open
access part of the network.  Advertising will not appear on the site when
accessed from schools. The overall development of the education network is
being led by Pearson's in-house digital publishing company, San
Francisco-based Headland Digital Media. The brand identity for the network
will be announced at a later stage.

Pearson's education network

The education network will extend the ongoing learning activities of its
participants. For example, the elementary-school teacher portal will include
lesson planning software and teacher training materials. Parents of school-age
children will have access to a fully integrated site that ties back directly
to the components of the student's experience, thus establishing a genuine
home-school connection. The college student portal will provide detailed,
subject-specific learning materials for key academic disciplines. The
adult-learning portal will provide information and resources relating to
personal and professional development. Each portal will integrate the
components that the online environment makes possible - fast communication,
easy access to peers and tutors, a set of always accessible organisational
tools, self-paced learning and assessment opportunities, and a host of
subject- and grade-specific learning resources.

SCORE!

Pearson is also forming a strategic alliance with, and has agreed to take an
equity stake, valued at around $20m, in SCORE! Learning, Inc., a subsidiary of
education and career services company Kaplan, Inc., and a leading national
provider of learning programs and educational resources. This alliance extends
the relationship already in place between Pearson and SCORE!, wherein more
than 100 neighbourhood SCORE! after-school centres already use adaptive
digital curriculum created by Pearson's Computer Curriculum Corporation.
Pearson and SCORE! will work together to develop the technology required to
create new services for Internet delivery. These services will be available at
SCORE! centres as well as directly over the Internet via eSCORE.com, making
SCORE!'s educational coaching available live on the internet. eSCORE.com , a
leading provider of online learning and resources for children will also be
prominently featured within Pearson's education network, making it possible to
offer online coaching and support to students whose teachers and parents use
the network.

Kaplan (www.kaplan.com) is a premier provider of educational and career
services for individuals, schools and businesses.  Kaplan offers test prep and
admissions services (www.kaptest.com); K-12 educational programs for children
and parents through SCORE! Learning,Inc. and www.eSCORE.com; on-site education
and professional development at schools and universities; books and software;
professional education services; and distance learning programmes
(www.KaplanCollege.com).  Kaplan is a subsidiary of The Washington Post
Company (NYSE:WPO).

Copernicus

Pearson is taking a 10% equity stake and Board representation in Edgate.com,
Inc., creator of The Copernicus Education Gateway (Copernicus), which provides
customised, local education portals for teachers, parents and students in
local schools and school districts across the United States. Copernicus will
co-brand their localised online education gateways with Pearson's education
network, and the combined offering will be promoted by Pearson and Copernicus
as a key element of the kindergarten to 12th grade section of the network.
Pearson and Copernicus will work together in placing their content, goods and
services within these localised gateways. 

The Copernicus Education Gateway uses an 'open content model', allowing each
local online community to customise and enabling educators to add content of
their own selection to meet the needs and interests of their community
members.  Educators easily post homework assignments and other important
community announcements by using their Copernicus SchoolNotes for parents and
students to retrieve this information anywhere at anytime.  Educators direct
students in the classroom and at home to their school's customised Copernicus
Education Gateway to gain access to local school and community information,
research information and other websites.  Educators access the Copernicus
Curriculum Matrix to retrieve their state's educational standards with
cross-referenced lesson plans and other Internet resources.  Schools are able
to place online fund raising events in their Copernicus Community to reach
community members.

Blackboard

Pearson is partnering with, and will invest in, Blackboard Inc., a leading
Internet Infrastructure company whose software platform powers  'edu' online
environments at more than 1,800 colleges, universities and in more than 70
countries around the world.  In addition to online administrative and
community services, the Blackboard CourseInfo product line enables educators
to enhance in-class instruction and/or deliver distance learning by bringing
their course materials, class discussions, assignments, and quizzes to the
web.  More than 2.1 million people worldwide teach and learn in online
education environments powered by Blackboard. 

The Blackboard partnership will further position Pearson as the premier
provider of higher education content and services for online course
environments.  The Blackboard CourseInfo course management platform will be
featured in the education network serving the Higher Education, K-12,
Professional Development and Adult Learning markets.  Pearson and Blackboard
are also in the process of developing plans for cross promotion and
development of content and services for Blackboard's Scholar.com and
Blackboard.com web properties and the Higher Education portion of the
education network.


Notes to Editors

Pearson Education 

Pearson Education the world's largest education business covers the school,
college and professional markets.  It is the leading US school publisher,
publishing textbooks and electronic education programmes across the whole
curriculum.  In the US elementary education market, Scott Foresman is the
preferred publisher and offers companion websites and digital workbooks for
many of their titles (e.g. www.sfreading.com). The Waterford Reading programme
is the leading electronic reading programme for children of kindergarten age. 
Prentice Hall School (www.phschool.com) publishes in all the major secondary
programmes and, in addition to companion websites, creates subject specific
learning communities (such as www.chemplace.com) for high school students and
educators.  KnowZone (www.kz.com) is an online assessment programme linked to
state tests, which can be accessed by teachers, students and parents either at
school or home. 

Pearson Education is also by far the leading higher education publisher in the
US, covering every part of the college curriculum through imprints such as
Addison Wesley Longman, Prentice Hall and Allyn & Bacon.  It has a significant
portfolio of premium web-based educational content including online
assignments and interactive exercises for self-assessment and practice,
lecture resources and full testbanks for exams..  This information is
available in over 1,200 'Companion Websites' and in many commercial course
management system platforms such as WebCT and eCollege.

It is the world's leading technology publisher, with over 1,000 computer and
technology titles published each year through imprints that include Que, Sams,
Prentice Hall, Cisco Press, Adobe Press, New Riders, Peachpit and Addison
Wesley. InformIT (www.informit.com) is positioned to be the leading vertical
portal for accomplished and aspiring IT professionals.

Outside the US, Pearson Education is the premier English Language Teaching
publisher and a leading publisher of indigenous works in the school,
university and professional markets in countries all around the world.