The Institute of Political Studies in Paris (L’Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris or IEP Paris – more commonly known as “Sciences Po”) and BNP Paribas share the same objective – to provide young people from marginalised neighbourhoods with access to university education and employment.
In 2001, Sciences Po, with the support of BNP Paribas, launched the first “positive discrimination” initiative in France.
Proposed by Richard Descoings, Director of the IEP, these measures are aimed at helping young people from disadvantaged schools, or Education Priority Zones (ZEP), to enter Sciences Po by a special route, where academic knowledge is treated as less important than drive, personal ambition and student profile.
The aims of the ZEP Convention are to provide the means for students of different social and geographical backgrounds to have access to Sciences Po, as well as to achieve a degree of social diversity within the School.
The results to date have been very positive, with 264 students having gained a place to study at the Institute.
In the same spirit, in 2006 BNP Paribas launched its “projet banlieues” (suburbs project), with the aim of creating jobs and social bonding and of setting up educational assistance in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
More on the same subject
http://www.enregion.fr/?s=sciences+po
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