Oxford University Press merges its two education divisions

Oxford University Press (OUP) has announced the merger of its two education divisions - Oxford Education and Asia Education - into a new business operating across the world.

The new division will be headed by Fathima Dada, the current managing director of Oxford Education.

South Africa-born Fathima, who began her career as a teacher in the apartheid era and has also worked with Pearson, takes up the new position immediately.

OUP CEO Nigel Portwood said that creating a single division, focused on the publishing house's education markets, will help it to compete more effectively and further enhance its 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," Portwood said.

OUP is a department of the University of Oxford and is regarded the world's largest university press with the widest global presence.

Its publishing program includes scholarly works in all academic disciplines, bibles, music, school and college textbooks, children's books, materials for teaching English as a foreign language, business books, dictionaries and reference books, and academic journals.