Making Progress Toward Equity and Opportunity in Learning

Updated 25 Feb 2021

Education is a powerful force for equity and change in our world. It has the potential to deliver the opportunity that improves lives and enables economic mobility. Yet, a cycle of systemic racism across our society is holding back Black and other ethnically diverse people from realizing these benefits. Everyone does not have an equal chance to use education to reach their dreams and fulfill their personal potential.

We recognize we need to actively change the system so that education can work the way it was meant to. Our ambition is to build a world where:

  • Everyone has an equal and lifelong opportunity to succeed through learning
  • Our educational products and services represent the rich diversity of learners
  • Our educational content reflects an evolution towards anti-racism and social justice
  • All our employees feel a sense of belonging, both in our company and in their communities
  • As a society, as a company and as individuals we no longer need to remind anyone that Black lives matter

Our Commitment

Our educational products and services have the power to shape hearts, minds, ambitions, and aspirations for generations to come. As the world’s learning company, we have a responsibility to work to change the system by being relentlessly anti-racist in everything we do.

In August we laid out a number of commitments to tackle these issues head on and start the change, both within Pearson and across society more broadly. Over the past few months, a dedicated and diverse group of our employees rolled up their sleeves to develop a bold plan with more than 50 specific action steps to implement our commitments. Now, many of those actions are underway. 

For customers

In August, we promised that all our products and services- from courseware and assessments to virtual schools and professional certifications - incorporate anti-racist principles.

As a first step, we recently hired an equity advisor for our global assessment business to ensure that all students and professional test takers benefit from fair and bias-free assessments.

In our courseware business, we are on track to complete our active review of biased content in our top US and UK titles this year. We have begun to take corrective action already and will move forward aggressively on changes in the first half of 2021 and going forward. In addition, we have added an easier way for students and educators to contact us with concerns or information about potential bias in our content. We are also beginning the work to build a more diverse pipeline of authors and content contributors.

While we work to strengthen our broader editorial guidelines, we recently released a set of guidelines specifically addressing race and ethnicity in our content. This is one step towards ensuring what we produce is anti-racist, accurate and authentic in representing the many diverse groups around the world that are our learners.

In August, we also committed to making anti-racist educational resources and research publicly available to our 100 million customers and that content is now available.

For our employees

Pearson also committed that representation at management levels of the company would reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of the geographies where we operate by 2025 and that we would regularly track that progress. In doing that, we have committed to a corporate culture that is inclusive and equitable, where all employees feel respected, valued, and have a sense of belonging.

We are making a major investment in a new talent recruiting platform and we have started revising many of our recruitment and hiring practices. We have also launched a leadership development program to support Black and ethnically diverse employees, with the first cohort already selected and in the program. In addition, we've recruited a Chief Diversity Officer, who will build a team of employees and the infrastructure to continue the long-term work of diversity, equity and inclusion across the company.

Further, we revised our Code of Conduct in September to include our anti-racism commitment. Our employees received two extra volunteer days to devote to social justice causes in communities around the world and we were proud to provide Election Day as a holiday for our US employees in order to support voting rights.

For society

Finally, we are putting in place the external partnerships to advance anti-racist causes globally. Work is underway to create 50 new partnerships with a range of groups that participate in the social justice movement, including historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the US, private sector, not-for-profits, and education organizations around the world. Over the next three to ten years, our intention is to proactively lead the debate and further an anti-racist agenda in education by facilitating a collaborative and consistent approach on best practices, content, access, and measuring the impact of change.

Learning is the pursuit of bettering yourself and, as a company, we are pushing ourselves every day. We don’t have all the answers, but we are committed to putting in the work. Only then will we have a chance at achieving equal opportunity for all.