Abstract

The case is about the instruction approach used by private, nonprofit, and no tuition and no fees computer programming school, École 42, based in Paris. Started in 2013, École 42 aimed to build a pool of experienced and competent coders in the future. The school did not charge a fee from students; instead, it relied on the founder, French billionaire, Xavier Niel, for financial sustenance. The school had no teachers. Students learnt from one another and from secondary sources of information like the internet. The school had been endorsed by some of the well-known business leaders in the IT space. After its success in France, another École 42 campus was opened in the US in 2016 with at Fremont, California. It remains to be seen whether the institute will be able to replicate its success in the US and survive in the long run and whether the students will be able to secure jobs after graduation.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• To understand the learning approaches : Adult learning and Peer to Peer learning.
• To understand the Entrepreneurship model.

Keywords

Peer to peer learning, Adult learning, E Cole 42, Social entrepreneurship, Xavier Niel, Coding, Malcolm Knowles Adult Learning theory, Instructional Approaches, Timmons Model of Entrepreneurship