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Oxford University Press is merging its Asia Education and Oxford Education divisions into a single, global division, led by Oxford Education m.d. Fathima Dada.
Dada, who joined the company from Pearson late last year, takes up the new position immediately. Meanwhile Asia Education m.d. Adrian Mellor is leaving the company.
OUP c.e.o. Nigel Portwood said: “"Creating a single division, focused on our education markets, will help us to compete more effectively and further enhance our ability to serve schools and learners across the world. We are already very successful in the markets that we serve, but we want to ensure that we can accelerate our digital transformation and building of market-leading educational services.”
He added: "I would like to thank Adrian for his contribution to OUP over the last 14 years. He has successfully driven the development of OUP's business in the important Asia region and played a key role in some key strategic developments at the Press, such as Oxford Reading Buddy and Oxford AQA Exams."
The development came as it emerged that - following the announcement last week that four staffers, including head of children’s publishing Liz Cross, had left OUP Children’s Books in a restructure - a number of other jobs have also gone within OUP Children's and the wider Oxford Education division, in which OUP Children's sits, in recent weeks.
Revealing OUP’s annual results in July, c.e.o. Portwood said that the three education divisions - English Language Teaching (ELT), Asia Education and Oxford Education - had a "challenging year" in the 12 months to end March 2019, with market contractions in the UK and Spain. The previous year also saw “challenging” conditions for the Education business.
Dada took over as m.d. of OUP Education late last year, succeeding Kate Harris.