Director Shareholding

Pearson PLC
19 April 2004



19 April 2004

RNS
The London Stock Exchange
Old Broad Street
London
EC2N 1HP



Dear Sirs

Pearson plc - Notification of Directors' Interests

Pearson operates the Annual Bonus Share Matching Plan (the "Plan") whereby
executive directors and certain senior executives are able to elect to invest
their annual bonus in ordinary shares in the Company ("Shares"). The participant
is then entitled to receive, after tax thereon, one additional Share free of
charge for every Share left in trust for five years (or half that number of
additional Shares after three years). Entitlement to the additional Shares is
dependent on Pearson satisfying a corporate performance target and will normally
be lost if the participant leaves Pearson's employment.

The directors named below have informed the Company on 16 April 2004 that they
have purchased Shares in order to participate in the Plan in respect of annual
bonuses for 2003. The purchase price for all of these Shares was 647.5p per
share.

Director         Shares         Resultant     Percentage
                 Purchased      Holding       Holding

D C M Bell         2,702         59,194         0.062
R A Fairhead       3,088         12,710         0.002

Yours faithfully


Stephen Jones
Deputy Secretary





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