Janison Education Group Limited (ASX:JAN) has reached an agreement with the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to deliver the PISA-Based Test for Schools (PBTS) to schools in the USA.
The company said the agreement will also leverage its exam management services to provide online proctoring for its first digital assessment since acquisition.
This announcement follows the previously announced signing with a National Service Provider (NSP) in Brazil on to the PBTS platform and more recently, with an NSP in the Russian Federation.
Following strong demand in previous years for the OECD Test for Schools (as the PBTS is known within the USA) from school networks and school districts across the USA, an agreement has been formed between Janison and the OECD to continue the provision of the PBTS in the USA on the new Janison platform.
The agreement has an initial term of two years with Janison as the exclusive provider of the digital assessment platform to power the OECD test, and LTC as the online proctoring service for remote, digital test delivery.
Under the agreement, Janison will be the National Service Provider of the OECD Test for Schools (i.e. the PBTS) and will engage directly with schools and school districts across the USA.
Janison uses its existing ‘Insights’ platform to provide the PBTS assessment. The platform has required only minor customisations to cater for local languages and new reporting to generate the OECD PBTS results. This is in line with Janison’s strategy to productise its existing platform. The PBTS is a standardised test across all countries.
In 2016 there were more than 132,000 schools in the USA, of which approximately 32,000 were secondary schools (the OECD test is designed for students 15 years of age) across the public and private sector.
Having direct engagement with schools and school districts will enable Janison to offer the assessment directly to schools providing an element of control over the uptake speed and the ability to spread tests evenly across the year.
The total addressable market in the USA, should all schools sign up to the OECD test, would be in the region of US$160 million per annum, assuming revenue of approximately US$5,000 per school, per annum.
Janison said it expects to sign between 50 and 200 schools in year one, at an estimated revenue of US$0.25m-US$1m (A$0.4m-A$1.5m) per annum initially, with further significant growth expected thereafter as more schools join the programme.
