KATARZYNA BARCZYNSKA: We work with 14 different countries, very dynamically changing, very diversified. We’ve enjoyed very high single digit or double digit in growth in terms of the education business. And this is first of all because of this hunger for education, and also from the fact that a lot is being done to level the education in the region with the one in the Western countries. The form of education system is something which has come on to every market in the region.

You can see it in Croatia, in Hungary, in many other markets. In Poland, our biggest market you will see major change, which is, among other things, lowering of the entry age, so we will have six year olds starting education, and it will actually be finishing also a year earlier. This is a great opportunity for us in terms of providing new materials, new solutions and helping the Ministry. Our main focus for ages has been English language teaching. We are the fifth biggest publisher in Poland. Our major success is that we can actually be partner in education, starting from the age of six or seven, where kids just start, and leading them through this process until they graduate and, basically, to ever-lasting learning. Our blockbusters, you can see in every segment, English Adventure, our primary course itself, just one course, has got 34% of market share, so, basically, every third kid in Poland is using this course when he starts his adventure with English. We’ve been also very active and supportive for the local policy and local exams. And this year’s success are books for local school leaving exams. Our Hungarian colleagues they really are going to some extreme lengths when it comes to promoting English as the key language in the world. They ran the longest ever English lesson.

MARTA MIGALA: These are all simplified books which are based on real novels, and they’re available at different levels. So we want our students to read at least one per semester. We encourage them to read a lot at home or listen to CDs, because they’re also available with each book. It’s accompanied by some photocopiable materials which our teachers use when they prepare lessons based on these series, or they can download some fact sheets from the internet, because they are also available on their Longman’s website.

SOPHIE PIQUEMAL: We certain work quite closely with Pearson Education in Poland, and they - essentially, they buy books from us, either for distribution to their outlets, or they actually use some of the Penguin titles as kind of premiums for their teachers. I hope that we can do that kind of more widespread across the region. Central Europe is a wonderfully varied area, and we’ve always started off there on the back of the kind of ELT and academic business, so we’ve always been distributed via ELT distributors and outlets, and that’s changed a lot in places like Poland, and the more sort of recent entrants to the EU, but we’re kind of starting that up again in places like Russia where we’ve just had some very, very exciting news where we’ve signed up with a big retail chain called Bookvar, which have never had any English language books before. So they’re taking a wide range of our popular classics which is, I see, absolutely is a first step in to them taking English language books, then moving on to other areas of our publishing, such as kind of local interest books, like ‘Zlata’s Diary’ or, you know, these DK visual dictionaries, which sell fantastically across the region.

KATARZYNA BARCZYNSKA: The numbers of students are growing, and they are interested in developing their knowledge by also studying books published by foreign publishers, that’s why we are now a springboard for selling US and UK higher education lists, but we are also looking, potentially, into developing a local publishing programme. In higher education as well, technology allows students to make progress and achieve success, they are so hungry for, much quicker than using traditional means of learning and studying. The interest in new technologies is on increase here, and you can see it in state schools where Ministries are considering, for example, in Hungary buying interactive whiteboards, and installing them in every secondary school. The Polish government is thinking about buying laptops for every ‘gimnazjum’ student. And, effectively, they will need special digital product which we are - we are ready to provide to them.

MARTA MASLYK: Digital products first appeared in private language schools, such as Lingua Nova here. They came in the form of the interactive whiteboards, which is a fantastic tool for teachers and students. The students really enjoy the classes, as well as teachers who don’t have to spend lots of time on preparing the classes.

ADRIAN CHROSTOWSKI: We are now at one of private language schools here in Warsaw. The number of schools is still growing here in Poland, and the reason we are here is we can see, we can observe the lesson with the pilot site, MyCuttingEdgeLab. And we think it’s a great opportunity for us to offer blended learning for private language schools and teacher institutions here in Poland. And the government encourages us to offer such solutions, like blended learning in Poland, and that’s why we see many opportunities in here.

KATARZYNA BARCZYNSKA: Across the region we organise about 500 conferences for teachers every year. Teachers are very grateful for the fact that we do not only offer them product, but we offer them continued support in terms of helping them to improve their skills and to give them additional knowledge. We are also showing them how Pearson can help future students in adult life, for example, to looking for resource information in things such as Financial Times.

JAN CIENSKI: The FT is by far the best regarded foreign news source in Central Europe, especially in Poland. When the FT writes about a certain subject it immediately gets picked up by the local media. It enters the political debate as well, and so, again, it’s the most respected foreign news source. If you walk around the central bank, various ministries, leading companies, invariably there’ll be a copy of the FT lying around in the CEO’s office or in the Minister’s office somewhere.

NINA KOWALEWSKA: When I took over in 1990 we had 60 subscribers and sold about 60 copies in Poland, today we’re at two and a half thousand, and this is quite phenomenal growth. We still sell more than the IHT and the Wall Street Journal Europe together, and we have more subscribers than them jointly.

KATARZYNA BARCZYNSKA: There is a lot of soul searching right now in the West, and I’m sure Central Europe will not be immune to it, but education, actually, has still got big potential for growth, because everybody here understands that without investment in education, this part of the world will not be able to properly compete in the rest of the world.