Virtual school for home-tutored students

Franklin County schools will begin a pilot virtual school for homeschooled students in the county that would provide online instruction in courses designed to meet or exceed Virginia Standards of Learning, reports The Franklin News Post.

The school board has agreed to permit K12 Virtual Schools Programme, a technology-based education company in Herndon, Virginia, to begin marketing the online programme to parents of homeschooled students.

The pilot programme is expected to include about 30 students in kindergarten through the fifth grade. K12 Virtual Schools provides online education programmes to students in 25 states and more than 40 countries, says Kenny Word, a spokesman for the company.

The UK Joint Information Systems Committee (Jisc) will investigate a national shared services infrastructure for universities and colleges, says ZDNet.

Jisc says it will explore this and other shared and managed services options in an effort to cut costs and spread expertise across further and higher education, according to its strategy document for 2010-12.

Jisc also promises continuing spending on existing infrastructure, including the Janet network, for development and upgrades. Other commitments include enhancing the efficiency and cost effectiveness of management information systems.

Double-digit unemployment fuelled the need for people to sharpen their skills in 2009. Education in general benefited from the trend, with post-secondary education and online learning in particular gaining ground, states The Deal.

Braving a cool climate for IPOs, Bridgepoint Education, which offers online post-secondary education, and Rosetta Stone, a developer of language-learning software, made successful public debuts. However, Rosetta Stone stumbled later in the year, when it lowered earnings guidance by eight cents and postponed a $139 million secondary offering.

Nevertheless, more education IPOs are expected in the new year. For example, Archipelago Learning, which focuses on kindergarten through 12th grade but has recently begun to retool its digital learning aids for the post-secondary market, has filed for an IPO.