The participation of these leading industry players will enhance IT competencies throughout the Cisco Networking Academy Program and, by broadening its scope, offer more students the opportunity to take advantage of the Program.

The curriculum sponsored by HP, Panduit and Sun will include, respectively, IT Essentials 1: PC Hardware and Software and IT Essentials 2: Network Operating Systems; Fundamentals of Voice and Data Cabling systems; Fundamentals of UNIX (based on the Solaris operating environment) and Fundamentals of Java Programing. These will be optional courses, and students can choose to attend whichever ones are offered within the respective Academies. Students outside of the CCNA program can enroll in these new courses.

The Cisco Networking Academy Program is a non-profit partnership between Cisco Systems, education, business, government and community organizations around the world aimed at nurturing networking professionals. The education program employs an e-learning model, using a combination of Web-based and instructor-led training along with a hands-on lab environment to teach students how to design, build and maintain computer networks. First launched in 1997 in the US, there are more than 9,000 Networking Academies operating in 140 countries around the world and over 800 Academies in 25 countries in Asia Pacific.

"In today's knowledge-based economy, Panduit believes it is essential to implement educational initiatives that offer students early access to the knowledge they need for their future endeavours," said Patrick Foo, Managing Director, Panduit Asia Pacific Pte Ltd. "By participating in the Cisco Networking Academy Program, we can make a significant impact on education around the world."

"The results of the Cisco Networking Academy Program have been phenomenal," said Mr. Naoyuki Nakanishi, Regional Director, Global Education & Research, Sun Microsystems Asia Pacific. "Sharing the same vision as Cisco, Sun Microsystems is delighted to participate in the program and demonstrate our corporate citizenship in the education sector."

"These alliances demonstrate how committed Cisco, HP, Panduit and Sun are when it comes to partnering with the educational sector to create new learning programs for the IT industry," said Jiabin Duh, President of Cisco China. "Employers are hungry for IT-skilled workers and Cisco is expanding its Networking Academy Program to arm students with the critical IT skills necessary to remain competitive in the work place."

In China, three Academies, Tsinghua University (Beijing), South China University of Technology (Guangzhou) and University of Electronic Science and Technology (Chengdu) will offer the Sponsored Curriculum, with other Academies to follow as the program rolls-out.

(People's Daily June 26, 2002)