PAMOJA Education, an Oxford-based technology company and leading provider of online learning, has celebrated its 10th anniversary at St Hilda’s College.

The company, which has almost 4,500 students using its online platform from hundreds of schools around the world, is the sole provider of online teaching and learning for International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes, and this year expanded its offering to online Cambridge IGCSE and Cambridge International AS and A Level curricula, as well as a new online tutoring service, Pamoja Tutor.

Working from Oxford Business Park in Cowley, the firm has been based in the city since it was founded in 2009.

In September, Pamoja also combined forces with another Oxford-based company, Oxford Study Courses, which has been delivering IB Diploma Programme Revision Courses and Summer Programmes – including residential programmes in Oxford itself – for 30 years. Oxford Study Courses and Pamoja are now sharing offices, with a growing workforce of 55 members of staff between the two companies.

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Alongside celebrations of Pamoja’s anniversary, guests – which included education companies, academics, schools’ representatives, publishers, as well as members of the public – were invited to consider how they might define the concept of a classroom, and how this definition is changing in today’s world.

This topic was then debated by a panel of educators, who brought together experiences and expertise from their careers in university research, secondary school teaching, and the media.

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Moderated by Anne Keeling, communications director at ISC Research, the panelists were Ted McGrath, Head of d’Overbroeck’s International School in Oxford, Myrrh Domingo, Head of Undergraduate Provision at The Institute of Education at UCL and Bethan Eveleigh, Academic Team at Pamoja.

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Nelson Graves, founder of innovative news service News-Decoder, gave the keynote speech for the evening, where he talked about the value of online global collaboration in broadening the cultural awareness of Generation Z students, and what educators can do to facilitate this.

He said: “Congratulations to Pamoja on its birthday - 10 years in this industry is a real accomplishment, all the more so to be growing in the way it is.”

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Reflecting on the last 10 years, Pamoja CEO John Ingram said: “Thank you to you all for coming along to celebrate our 10th anniversary. "For the past 10 years, we’ve worked closely with schools around the world to solve their key educational challenges through online learning, and we want to continue building on this experience as well as the depth of experience of our online teachers. "The pace of change is picking up and we are in a good place to rise to new challenges, enabling more and more students around the world to learn no matter the time or place.”

He added: “Importantly, we aim to help students develop key skills for life, not just for school, helping them adapt to various environments, be both independent and collaborative, while engaging with different cultures and communication tools.”

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Hannah Senel-Walp, Pamoja’s Principal of Online Courses, said the company’s aim is to take its ability to deliver online courses and bring that to different curricula and students – the ultimate goal being that every student should have the opportunity to develop their skills and learning online.

The Data Commons, a national database which shows digital tech economy activity across the entire UK, revealed that investment into Oxford-based tech companies broke new records in 2018, totalling £341m.

In total, the combined turnover for digital companies in Oxford was estimated to be £1.8 billion in 2017.