PEARSON, the publishing giant behind the Financial Times and Penguin books, has put another asset on the sale block as chief executive Dame Marjorie Scardino carries on sharpening the company’s focus.

She is looking for a buyer for a little-known division that manufactures image scanners which process school test papers.

It was bought as part of National Computer Systems (NCS) in 2000, the blockbusting £1.7 billion acquisition made at the height of the technology boom and designed to “electrify” Scardino’s education strategy.

Today it is part of Pearson Assessments, a division that certifies student nurses, trainee stockbrokers and business-school applicants taking the graduate management admissions test.

Pearson raised guidance for that division last week, forecasting full-year growth of 8-10% instead of 5-7%. Although most of its vocational certification work is online, the trend for automated marking of handwritten tests is still growing.

The scanners identify pencil and ink marks on multi-choice test papers, as well as “reading” scripts that are fed through to a computer screen.

Morgan Stanley calculates that the scanners division had earnings of £12m in 2006, on sales of £71m. It should fetch more than £100m.

Scardino offloaded another part of NCS last December, raising £286m through the sale of its government arm.

The company is also trimming its newspaper holdings, prompting talk that the recovering FT will eventually be sold.

Pearson has granted Bernard Arnault’s luxury-goods combine LVMH an exclusive period until the end of November to tie up the £170m purchase of Les Echos in France. Discussions to sell its half-share in loss-making FT Deutschland to the group behind German magazine Der Speigel are also continuing.

But Pearson is not hoarding cash. Scardino snapped up the international arm of Reed Elsev-ier’s education division for £477m in May, only weeks after paying £241m for distance-learn-ing firm eCollege.

The company is unrecognisable from the one Scardino took over in early 1997. Stakes in investment-bank Lazard and Madame Tussaud’s waxworks are long gone.

Pearson declined to comment.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive