Study group

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Studienkreis (Studienkreis GmbH, Studienkreis Partnersysteme GmbH)

logo
legal form GmbH
founding 1974
Seat Bochum
management Lorenz Haase (Managing Director, Studienkreis GmbH), Dieter Fleck (Managing Director, Studienkreis Partnersysteme GmbH)
Number of employees approx. 10,000 tutors (mostly freelance workers )
sales EUR 75-80 million (2017)
Branch Tutoring institute
Website www.studienkreis.de

Study Group is a Founded in 1974 tutoring company with headquarters in Bochum . In addition to student aid, the study group is one of the leading commercial providers of tutoring in Germany and in German-speaking countries. Around a third of the 1,000 or so locations are operated as a franchise . The company has been owned by IK Small Cap I Fund since 2017 .

history

The following important information is missing from this article or section:
Tutoring Hüholt probably began in 1974, but the actual business start-up took place after his statement until 1976 instead. There is no independent evidence for this. Initially he worked in his birthplace Witten, then also in Herne, where the company was apparently first registered. When did the company move to Bochum? Details on the disc in the section "Bochum - Witten - Herne - Ruhrgebiet" .
In addition, there is no information on the ASS - when and why was the working group dissolved?
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

Study group headquarters in Bochum
Studienkreis branch in Löhne

The study group was founded in 1974 by Jürgen Hüholdt in the Ruhr area. In the following years further branches opened throughout Germany, in 1982 the 100th location was founded. Since the mid-1980s, new tutoring schools have also been founded, some as franchise companies, and combined in the “Studienkreis Gesellschaft für Franchise- und Partner-Systeme GmbH” (since 2005: Studienkreis Partnersysteme GmbH ). All locations use standardized teaching material only with country and country-specific adaptations, since the study group founded the publishing house for didactics in 1987 and an editorial office for teaching materials in 1988.

In the 1990s, the study group expanded into the new federal states and neighboring countries ( Austria , Luxembourg , Switzerland ). With around 1,000 tutoring schools, almost half of them at franchise locations, the study group in Germany ranked tenth among the chains with the most franchisees in 1999. The company had as many branches as the fast food chain McDonald’s .

From 1991 150 franchisees with a total of 400 tutoring schools joined forces in the association “Arbeitskreis Independent Studienkreis -haber” (ASS) in order to improve the cooperation of the franchisees, to represent their interests towards the head office and to improve the quality of the tutoring schools.

In 2003 company founder Hüholdt sold the company to Cornelsen Verlag . In 2012 the study group had a turnover of 52 million euros, together with the franchise partners around 80 million euros. On January 1, 2013, Cornelsen sold the study group to the capital investment company Aurelius .

After the takeover by Aurelius, the study group increasingly opened its own new locations, preferably by buying existing tutoring institutes. In 2013, the share of franchisees was only 40 percent (from 50% previously) and fell further to a good third in 2015.

In September 2015, the study group bought the website and the technology of the digital learning platform Tutoria (Tutoria GmbH remained with the Holtzbrinck Group ).

In December 2017, the investment company Aurelius sold the study group for 71.7 million euros to IK Small Cap I Fund, a fund launched by the private equity company IK Investment Partners.

Corporate structure

The company consists of the Studienkreis GmbH with its own branches and the 100% subsidiary Studienkreis Partnersysteme GmbH , which acts as the system center for the franchise partners.

The study group has around 1,000 locations in Germany, Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland. Around a third of the schools are run by sole proprietorships in a franchise process. In Switzerland, the study group is organized exclusively through a national master's franchiser .

In total, around 10,000 teachers (mostly freelance workers ) teach around 100,000 students a year, mainly in mathematics , English and German .

In addition to on-site offers in the tutoring facility , tutors offer online one-to-one lessons via chat software with a headset and webcam. In addition, the study group set up an online homework “emergency aid” and a “learning library”. These services have also been available via app since the end of 2016 .

From 2005 onwards, the study group sought certification for all institutes. According to the company, around 800 study groups (as of 2017) have been certified by TÜV Rheinland according to a catalog of criteria for tutoring institutes. Other tutoring companies do not use this certification.

Awards

In 2016, the study group was named for the fourth time in a row in the annual ranking of ServiceValue GmbH in cooperation with the daily newspaper Die Welt and the Goethe University Frankfurt as "Service Champion No. 1 for tutoring providers".

Controversy and criticism

The "Working Group for Self-Employed Study Group Owners" (ASS), founded in 1991, criticized the study group for what it considered to be excessive franchise fees of 13% of total sales. In addition, the contracts stipulated terms of ten to 20 years. Premature termination of the contract was only possible against payment of a transfer fee.

After a franchisee sued against the contractual conditions at the time, the Bochum district court declared them immoral in 1999 and reprimanded the company. The study group appealed against this, which was rejected by the OLG Hamm. The revision of the study group directed against it was not accepted by the Federal Court of Justice, as the case had no fundamental significance and the revision also had no prospect of success. The Federal Court of Justice shared the view of the lower courts that "the contract of the parties according to § 138 Abs. 1 BGB because of immoral gagging ... is void".

Dieter Dohmen, head of the Research Institute for Educational and Social Economics in Berlin, criticized in a study commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in 2008 a lack of market transparency and the oligopolization of the tutoring market, especially in favor of the two largest providers, the Studienkreis and Schülerhilfe. It is also noticeable that "there is practically no reliable information on the qualifications of the teachers employed by the individual tutoring providers" and "that the providers consistently emphasize the high level of professionalism of their teachers, but no specific information is given about their actual qualifications". The certification measures also promise little clarification, as there is no uniform certification procedure for all providers.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Aurelius sells Studienkreis Group , Aurelius press release November 22, 2017, accessed January 22, 2018
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Thorsten Posselt and Nils Maschke: Internationalization through master franchising using the example of the company “Studienkreis” . In: Joachim Zentes, Bernhard Swoboda, Dirk Morschett (Eds.): Case studies on international management: Basics - practical experience - perspectives. Springer-Verlag, 2013. ISBN 978-3-8349-6793-0 (online on Google Books )
  3. ↑ a b c Focus Magazin: Franchise - Rügen für Studienkreis , May 22, 1999. Accessed on August 18, 2013
  4. ^ Website ASS ( Memento from May 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Billion market tuition . (No longer available online.) In: Handelsblatt online. June 3, 2013, archived from the original on December 3, 2013 ; accessed on September 26, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Study group: 40 years and no standstill , July 14, 2014
  7. ↑ Aurelius Invest: AURELIUS subsidiary Studienkreis celebrates its 60th opening , June 18, 2015
  8. ↑ DerWesten : Bochumer Studienkreis Gruppe takes over competitor tutoria. August 21, 2015, accessed September 27, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Aurelius: Studienkreis-Exit and new deal , Der Aktionär December 21, 2017, accessed January 22, 2018
  10. ^ German Franchise Association eV: Franchise system study circle. Deutscher Franchiseverband eV, accessed on September 26, 2017 .
  11. ^ Die Welt: Studienkreis earns good money because of bad grades , November 17, 2002
  12. ↑ Online tutoring saves time and money. n-tv , accessed September 7, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Study group: Immediate help. Retrieved September 7, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Study group: Learn online. Retrieved September 7, 2017 .
  15. ↑ RP ONLINE: Monheim: Studienkreis offers learning apps for the holidays. Retrieved September 7, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung : Billion business tuition. Overstrained parents , October 10, 2012
  17. ↑ Quality standard of tutoring. TÜV Rheinland, accessed on October 26, 2017 .
  18. ↑ a b Dieter Dohmen et al .: What do we know about tutoring? - State of the art and evaluation of the research literature on supply, demand and effects . Bertelsmann Verlag, 2008. In: Writings on education and social economy, Volume 3. ISBN 978-3-7639-3665-6 .
  19. ^ Sächsische Zeitung : Study group defends service champion , February 11, 2016
  20. ↑ OLG Hamm, judgment of March 13, 2000 - 8 U 113/99 -, juris.
  21. ↑ BGH, decision of July 17, 2002 - VIII ZR 347/00