Knowledge

Access to education and training can lead to economic prosperity and an improvement in the quality of life. Individuals are living longer, changing occupations more frequently and switching between different types of work more often.  All of this is leading to greater demand for skills training services.

The Challenge

  • Across the world, 77 million children are not enrolled in school and many of those enrolled do not attend1.
  • Globally, an estimated 781 million adults are illiterate. Of that number, approximately 64% are women2.
  • Between 2000 and 2010, jobs requiring post-secondary education are projected to grow at a much faster rate than the average of all jobs: 21.7% v. 15.2% in the USA3.

Markets & Drivers

Population trends mean that individuals are living longer.  The number of young people entering post-secondary education is increasing and workforce dynamics are also changing, with individuals changing jobs more frequently, fuelled by changing lifestyle choices.

Changes in policy incentives that allow for more public-private partnerships, as well as technological innovation in delivery mechanisms, are enabling companies to respond to these education opportunities.

  • The global education market is estimated to be US$ 2.5 trillion and currently 4.4% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is spent on education4.
  • The USA accounts for one third of the total education market and its post-secondary education market is estimated to be US$ 373 billion in size5
  • The current on-line learning market in the US is worth US$ 13.6 bilion and will continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22% over the next 5 years6.
  • Global corporate training market is worth USD 13.51 billion and is projected to grow to USD 17.29 billion by 2010.7

Investment Opportunities

The Knowledge theme focuses on companies whose goods and services enable education and training for both students and those in employment. This includes companies in the following sub-themes:

  • Education & training – providing solutions for post-secondary education, language or corporate training
  • Solutions for the educational market – facilitating access to education through provision of key support services

Examples of companies within the Knowledge theme are...

  • Benesse (Japan) offers correspondence educational services
  • Reed Elsevier (The Netherlands/UK) a leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical literature
  • RM [UK] provides I.T. related educational services to schools
  • Strayer (USA), a provider of post-secondary education services to working adults

Footnotes

[1] UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2007

[2] UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2007 

[3] US Department of Labor Employment Outlook: Occupational employment projections to 2010

[4] UNESCO Global Education Digest 2007

[5] US Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, Digest of Education Statistics: 200

[6] Ambient Insight 'The US market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2007 - 2012 Forecast and Analysis'

[7] Simba Information 2007

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