So the THE is to be sold off from the TSL Group. https://news.sky.com/story/tpg-plots-break-up-and-sale-as-teachers-bible-hits-end-of-term-11411284 Where does this leave the TES and the education community it has served for more than 100 years? The new story says that:

The remainder of TES Global’s ‎business, which includes the magazine previously called The Times Education Supplement, is expected to be sold separately in the coming months.

As reported earlier on this blog, TPG acquired the TSL Group in July 2013. The accounts of TSL Group or last year, ending in August 2017 didn’t make pretty reading and I wonder whether predications for the outcome in 2018 could possibly be at the back of this move to split up the TSL Group, starting with the seemingly most saleable part of the business?

TPG has not made a total success of its venture from the Lone Star State into UK markets: think Poundworld and Prezza restaurants and the TSL Group makes the third less than financially satisfactory outcome. Still, TPG are large enough to take the hit and make use of any tax losses that might come with it.

There is still a great business to be had working with UK teachers and their schools as TeachVac has shown on the recruitment side and SchoolsWeek on the news side. However, the entry of the DfE into the recruitment market probably won’t make it easy to attract buyers for the TES part of the group unless they can see a clear strategy to create an integrated education news and information platform serving the whole education community including teachers, parents, administrators and the general public in a low cost environment that is entirely a digital presence.

As a former employee of the TSL Group, they bought my business in 2008 when the government was establishing the School Recruitment Service: a recruitment site that the TES no doubt helped reach a swift demise. I worked for TSL from 2008 until 2011 and then retired. The world has moved on since 2011 and the digital environment is much more organised than it was then as TeachVac has demonstrated in the recruitment field www.teachvac.co.uk in just four years from a standing start.

Protecting the teacher vacancy market must be a major concern for all interested in ensuring that schools can recruit and retain teachers and other staff in an orderly manner. Everyone needs to be thinking about the 2019 recruitment round to ensure that there will be a secure operational market place for vacancies for the whole of that round. What must not happen is a disorderly market that leaves schools and teacher struggling to know where to place and find vacancies. As Chair of TeachVac, I am not a disinterested party in this debate. At this stage it is merely a matter for concern. It must not become a real issue.