According to Clement Masai, Cisco’s Country Manager for Kenya, the program is a key element of Cisco’s contribution to bridging the digital divide, and aims to help create a sustainable workforce in the continent. “The success of these programs assists in offering sustainable development and accelerates a country’s progression and full integration into the world economy,” adds Masai.
The program is currently run in over 10,000 high schools, colleges, universities, technical and military schools, community based organizations and government training centre across the world. It provides a global e-learning curriculum designed to teach students how to design, build and maintain computer networks as they may wish. “They also offer a broad range of internet technology courses designed to equip students with skills to go into careers in network design and administration, technical support, programming or software engineering. Students and graduates are trained to use critical thinking and problem solving skills,” says Shahab Meshki; Cisco Academy Regional Manager, Middle East & Africa.
Kenya became one of the first countries to host Networking Academies and as such has shown fantastic growth and ownership of the program. Due to the high number of Local Academies (LA) in Kenya, and in the interest of quality, the LA’s were split among the two regional Academies: AFRALTI and JKUAT.
The 16 active local academies locally are; Kenya College of Communication Technology (KCCT), University of Nairobi, Maseno University, Egerton University, Kenya Institute of Administration, Holy Rosary Tala (Female Academy), Loreto College Msongari (Female Academy), Masaai Education Discovery, Kenya College of Accountancy and Kenya School of Professional Studies. The curriculum offered currently in Kenya is IT Essentials, CCNA, Wireless Technologies and Network Security. Cisco has further supported the Kenya College Communication Technology and recently donated a Wireless lab bundle to empower and train students on the new technologies aimed at improving the ICT skills.
The program began in October 1997 in a small school in San Jose, USA and is now present in more than 11 000 institutions worldwide. So far, the Academy has had positive impacts on almost two million students across more than 160 countries. In Kenya alone, there are 18 active Academies with 4 000 students. This program is a crucial step towards helping meet the demand for the country’s ICT skills gap.
Cisco’s vision through internet networking is to transform how people connect, communicate and collaborate, and present ways to accomplish the country's economic development through ICT.
Source: New Age PR
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