The accreditation of the ESSEC : following the American model or recognition of individuality ?

Certification is a practice which is now widespread in industrial companies and services. The education sector seems also to have adopted this system. The ESSEC became the first European school to be accredited by the AACSB (American business school certification organisation). Maurice Thévenet, director of the ESSEC, reviews the practice of certification which raised many questions. How, for example, should the quality of teaching be defined? How should the accreditation process work? What was the reaction of the teaching body? Has the organisation of the school evolved? The ESSEC example also allows us to question the uniqueness of each national education system, and to ask whether, in a world which is increasingly globalised, a European institution evaluated by an American system can preserve its specific features.