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The interested party was the American test-processing company NCS, which
approached firstly OCR. Intervention from UCLES, never inclined to what it sensed
would be a subordinate role, halted embryonic cooperative plans and led to the
resignation of OCR’s then Chief Executive. Next NCS turned to AQA, where
trustees’ suspicions of a takeover in disguise led to the termination of a potential joint
project. Finally, in the autumn of 2002, Pearson, the multinational organisation which
describes itself as “the world’s leading education company” (EdexceI 2003) - which
by then had acquired NCS as its assessment arm - found the entree it had been
seeking in a financially straitened Edexcel. As a result of what an Edexcel official
described as “one of the major downsides [to Curriculum 2000] - the financial
cost...to awarding bodies” (Edexcel2 2003), Edexcel had posted a £7 million deficit
in 2002 (Edexcel2 2003). By spring 2003, Edexcel had placed the following
announcement on its website:
Pearson and Edexcel Create New Organisation to Modernise
Exam Marking and Processing
The new organisation, London Qualifications, was created with Edexcel owning 25%
and Pearson 75% of the equity. The website proclaimed that Pearson “plans a multi-
million investment programme over the next five years through London Qualifications
to introduce a technology-based approach to marking and processing examinations.”
In a recent interview with the CEO and President of Pearson Assessment & Testing at
the impressive new Edexcel office in High Holbom, I learned that Pearson now
wholly owns Edexcel and is pressing ahead with its plans to introduce technology in
its quest to “close the loop” through providing assessments together with the support
through its textbook arm for identified weaknesses. (Edexcel4 2005)