David Smith Appointed CEO of NCS; Company Name Changes to NCS Pearson.

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MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 18, 2000

Pearson Education, the world's leading education company, today announced the appointment of David W. Smith as the new Chief Executive Officer of National Computer Systems, Inc. (NCS).

Mr. Smith is a 12-year veteran of NCS, most recently as President of NCS' Assessments and Testing Services, and has had executive responsibility for three major divisions representing over $250 million in revenue. These included NCS Measurement Services Division, the nation's largest commercial processor of student assessment tests; the Assessments Division; and Virtual University Enterprises (VUE), an Internet-based electronic course registration and testing service business.

Peter Jovanovich, Chief Executive Officer of Pearson Education said, "Under Dave Smith's leadership these past four years, revenue for these business units has more than doubled. Dave's background, experience, and demonstrated track record of success make him exceptionally well qualified to succeed Russ Gullotti, who announced his retirement in May."

Mr. Smith commented "The complementary businesses of Pearson Education and NCS are well positioned to create new market opportunities through the development of customized learning in which assessment, systems, data management, and curriculum work together. Together, we can shape the intelligent classroom - adding applications and assessment to the curriculum and changing the way we teach and learn."

Before joining NCS, Mr. Smith spent 15 years in educational publishing. He held increasingly senior management positions at McGraw-Hill, William C. Brown, and Houghton Mifflin. He holds an MBA from the University of Iowa.

This week, Pearson plc, the international media company, completed the acquisition of NCS, which was previously announced on July 31. NCS is one of the leading commercial testing and educational services companies in the United States. It operates in some of the fastest growing sectors of the US education market and has delivered annual average compound revenue and earnings growth of 20 and 24 percent respectively since 1995. The acquisition of NCS transforms Pearson Education, creating a world leading integrated education company, combining strong market positions in educational content, online learning, assessment and enterprise applications for US schools and professional accreditation.

NCS is now part of Pearson Education and will be known as NCS Pearson.

About Pearson Education

With offices in 30 countries, Pearson Education is the world's largest education business. Its leading brands include Addison Wesley, Prentice Hall, Allyn & Bacon, Longman, Scott Foresman, and Computer Curriculum Corporation. Pearson Education is the global leader in online learning through its 1,200 textbook companion Web sites and the InformIT portal for technology professionals. Pearson's Learning Network, www.learningnetwork.com, brings online education to all Internet users via four interactive Networks: K-12, Higher Education, Professional Development and Lifelong Learning. For more information, visit www.pearsoned.com.

About NCS

NCS is a global information service company providing software, services, systems and Internet-based technologies for data collection, complex data management and interpretation. NCS is the largest commercial processor of student assessment tests for kindergarten to 12th grade education in the US, scoring some 40 million tests a year. It is involved at all stages of the process, from test design to delivery, processing and reporting results. NCS is also the largest single provider of student curriculum, instructional and financial management software to schools. These tools help teachers and administrators to keep attendance records, grades, test scores and to manage state curriculum requirements. It has software in some 40,000 of the 110,000 schools in the US and has been adding thousands of new schools a year to its client base. It is responsible for large amounts of school data, including managing the schedules of over 16 million students. NCS also provides many services to the US Department of Education in support of their student loan programs. For more information, visit www.ncs.com.

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