For many parents, home-schooling during lockdown was no less than a “nightmare” – but, says fund manager Ron Shamgar, the unlikely scenario created dream conditions for Janison Education to prosper.

The company provides the software infrastructure needed to conduct high stakes and high volume testing digitally – working with governments and educational groups to deliver professional education services online.

Schools and accreditors were forced to quickly adapt in 2020 when lockdowns were introduced across Australia and the world, and Mr Shamgar noted this “really accelerated the need for online testing”.

In the wake of this pivot, Janison Education recorded one of its best financial years on record – the company generated $30 million in operating revenues for the first time, grew annualised rate of return to 75%, and notched up gross margin expansion of 57%.

Even if further lockdowns never materialise, Mr Shamgar believes this trend towards digital assessments will continue to gather pace.

“At the end of the day if you look at long-term industry tailwinds, I think the pen and paper assessment will be a thing of the past,” he said.

“Whether we never have lockdowns again in the future, I think that schools and education institutions have realised they have to have this capacity to run online assessments.”

Barriers to entry are high within the industry, Mr Shamgar said, both in terms of creating the necessary infrastructure and in developing relationships with the right government and educational institutions – meaning Janison Education is well placed to capitalise on this trend.

Janison Education CEO David Caspari quantified these comments, saying the company already has “enduring relationships” with many of the groups it works with.

“We’ve experienced no churn in any of our assessment customers since we’ve launched the portfolio,” he said. 

“We’re not the assessment quiz engine that a Year 6 teacher might use to author a quick quiz to test out how the students in her class are going.

“We operate in high stakes, high volume, high reputation, high trust. Our customers are the largest jurisdictions in the world, the largest brands in the world.”

As a result, the education sector’s transformation over the past 18 months has been a really exciting time for Janison Education, Mr Caspari said, and the business’s recent success reflects both these changes and the maturation of the company’s technology over the past decade.

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