Over the past 5 years, we’ve all grown accustomed to watching MIT, Stanford, Harvard & other top universities deliver entire classes online. As with much of the Internet, US Education has benefited largely from the Internet in solidifying its global brand – at least, the top engineering schools – however, France’s top engineering school, Polytechnique, just announced a partnership with OpenClassrooms, bringing the class “Decode the Entrepreneur’s DNA” to the platform.
The class, offered in English, represents a big push, both for MOOCs in France, and Educational institutions, into a more modern approach to education, bridging the gap between students around the world and France’s top-tier educators.
This, however, isn’t the first MOOC for Polytechnique – the university is also teaming up with HEC, which has a globally-leading MBA, to produce a course (in French): “Create a Tech Startup.”
France’s education system has many advantages – students learn more per year in terms of pure knowledge than in Anglosaxon systems, their degrees go deeper than their equivalents, and their early focus by subject starting as early as high school means that students are exposed early to Math, Science & Business – if they choose this route.
Bringing this education system online, and in English – not surprising, as many of France’s top universities teach in English – will provide the rest of the world a foyer into the French approach.
Here in the French tech scene, I often say “Take a Polytechnique student and put him in Stanford for a year abroad, and you’ll have a solid tech entrepreneur that will make your money back every time.”