UK Based 'Netflix For Teaching' Raises Over US$8 Million In Funding To Alleviate Worldwide Teacher Shortage
LONDON, April 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Guide Education, a UK based education-tech company founded by former Headteacher Leon Hady, has raised £6 million (US$8.25 million) to address the increasing shortages of qualified teachers. The round is led by the UK Government Future Fund and other private investors. Novistra capital acted as advisors.
The company was founded in 2016 to leverage the potential of online learning, and in particular widening access to educational material for disadvantaged students. Now boasting a 7-figure turnover, Guide encourages people into teaching by providing them with the tools they need to kick start their career. Founder and CEO Leon Hady highlighted the unique opportunity and responsibility that came with it:
"The investment is a testament to the sustained impact we've made across schools and learning institutions. We have refined our services and are now poised to scale the offering. The UN has stated that the world will be 68 million teachers short by 2030. Without a qualified teacher in every classroom in every school, the quality of education for young people will diminish significantly. This will impact the poorest students first and foremost, furthering educational inequality."
Guide Education currently works with over 700 schools and has helped train over 15,000 teachers. Their content has garnered millions of views across thousands of videos organised into dozens of courses. Users credit Guide Education's proprietary technology, that allows for personalised learning journeys and detailed student-mentor interactions, as a key factor in their success and uptake of the platform.
Hady went on to say: "What makes Guide Education unique is the flexibility we have built into our learning systems. We've taken all the core elements of effective face-to-face learning and repurposed them into a 4-step process that improves teacher training outcomes in a faster, cheaper and more impactful model. Educational technology should bend around the user, not the other way round. Our software has been designed by teachers for teachers and holistically supports the delivery of pedagogy and an actual learning process. It's true online learning, not just online delivery of offline content."
David Hans-Barker, Guide Education's Co-Founder believes the investment will allow them to further their mission in improving the quantity and quality of teachers and thus creating better outcomes for all learners. He said: "Education levels the playing field and as long as we lack quality teachers, our educational system will always be unequal. That's why we want to get this to everyone. It's time for the monopoly to be over, your background should not determine the quality of teacher you can access. Teachers are the most powerful differentiator in a student's educational outcomes and thus their life chances. We have the tools to make a difference and now we have the means too."
Vipul Bhargava, Partner at Guide's advisors Novistra Capital, is aware of the gaps in the Edtech boom. He said: "2020 was the highest year on record for investments in the Edtech sector globally. 2021 has also started strongly, however, one of the biggest challenges in deploying Edtech has been teacher training. The pandemic has exasperated the many problems teachers face. This product solves the core problem by making it ever easier for schools, colleges and governments to effectively train their staff. The latest funding round is a testament to Guide Education as a company and their mission of solving the teacher shortage and training challenge we face today."
NOTES
- Guide Education provide over 3000 videos in 30 courses covering 5 years of teacher training materials
- Guide work with 720 schools across the world, either whole school or with individual teachers
- Guide also own and run TuitionKit, a GCSE support system that provides learning opportunities for over 600,000 students in 24 countries.
- Company website: www.guideeducation.co.uk
- Flagship product website: www.guideconnect.co.uk
- For all media enquiries, please contact Guide Education's marketing officer James Dallison - james.dallison@guideeducation.co.uk
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