On Wednesday April 12, a signing ceremony was held at the Embassy of France in Tokyo for a Memorandum of Understanding for a new double degree program between ESSEC Business School (hereafter “ESSEC”) and the Keio University Faculty of Business and Commerce. Present at the ceremony on the Keio side were Professor Kengo Sakakibara, Dean of the Graduate School of Business and Commerce, and Professor Masahiro Endo of the Faculty of Business and Commerce, and from the ESSEC side was Associate Professor Christian Koenig, the Associate Dean of International Affairs. Also in attendance was Mr. Pierre Colliot, Counsellor for Culture and Cooperation at the French Embassy in Japan, who gave a speech on behalf of the embassy, denoting the high expectations for the program.
ESSEC, one of the Grandes Écoles* in France, produces numerous elite business professionals. Under this program, Keio University will start sending its Faculty of Business and Commerce students (3rd and 4th year) to ESSEC from the 2017 Fall Semester, and it will start receiving students from the ESSEC Global BBA program at the Keio University Faculty of Business and Commerce from the 2018 academic year.
Keio and ESSEC enjoy a long-standing history of exchange going back more than 30 years, and there is currently already a double degree program between ESSEC and the Keio University Graduate School of Business Administration.
The signing of this new Double Degree Program agreement is expected to further energize high-level student exchange between Keio and French universities.
* Grandes Écoles
In the French higher education system, there is a distinction between universities (Universités) and Grandes Écoles. The Grandes Écoles is an educational institution unique to France where only those who take two years of preparatory classes after graduating from high school, and then pass the highly competitive Grandes Écoles entrance examinations, can enter. It is said to have its roots in the 18th century around the time of the French Revolution to train engineers, high-ranking government officials, and professors.
ESSEC Business School