Lessons of a virtual timetable

PEARSON, a large British media group that owns 50% of The Economist, is betting much of its future on the market for online education. Already the world's biggest “education company”, Pearson plans to dominate what Marjorie Scardino, the firm's chief executive, told analysts at the end of January is a potentially vast market for electronically delivered teaching material.

There is some evidence that her strategy might be sound. In America last year, total spending on education was a whopping $800 billion, and a government initiative to install electronic links in schools (known as the E-Rate) has ensured that 95% of all state schools, and 63% of all the classrooms in them, have Internet access. Moreover, 40% of all college classes in America already use Internet resources.