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Schools Urged to Teach '21st-Century' Skills
The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has issued a report and a free planning guide to help educators incorporate specific "21st-century" skills-such as problem solving, critical thinking, and communication-into the core curriculum of schools to better prepare students for today's technology-infused workplaces. "The partnership's leaders are calling on communities to take advantage of the window of opportunity provided by No Child Left Behind to put into place a long-term vision to better prepare students for the workplace and society of the 21st century," said Terry Crane, partnership co-chair and vice president for education at America Online Inc. Cisco Systems along with other companies is one of the founding members of this organization and is fully committed toward the goal of helping education meet the demands of the 21st century. >> More

SVCC Cisco Academic Training Center Earns Recognition
The Virginia Council for Career and Technical Education has selected the Cisco Academy Training Center for Sponsored Curriculums (CATC-SC) on the campus of Southwest Virginia Community College (SVCC) as this years' recipient of the "Creating Excellence in Education Award." Dan Bowling, Professor of Electrical/Electronics at SVCC and Director of the CATC-SC, will be presented the award at the annual meeting in Roanoke, Virginia later this summer. >> More

Yewlands School Technology College: Training Ground for Extraordinary Talent
An ordinary fifteen year old with extraordinary skills, John Bale is a Year 10 pupil at Yewlands Technology College in Sheffield. John trained as a Cisco Certified Network Associate, a course normally undertaken by post-16, or first year undergraduate students, which qualifies him as a highly marketable network engineer. Furthermore, John secured an A+ as a computer technician and used his skills as a teaching assistant at the City Learning Center. >> More

Against All Odds: the Cisco Networking Academy Program in Kinshasa, Congo
Where students use physical coercion to get a ride to the university at Kinshasa the capital of Congo; where the better-behaved students sleep in the classroom to save money; where the science faculty library barely has three hundred books most of which are outdated and written in languages no one ever speaks and where the 5-year degree program usually lasts 6 years because of strikes by unpaid teachers and angry students, a handful of students are pouring over their computer screens in a small classroom. These are students of the Cisco Networking Academy Program, established with the combined efforts of the United Nations and Cisco Systems, Inc. >> More

Cisco Networking Academy Launches Security and Wireless Curricula for Academies
After the success of the initial pilot phase of the Security and Wireless Curricula where 250 Academies integrated the courses, the Cisco Networking Academy Program is launching the two courses globally. "The new courses give students hands-on training, including everything from basic site survey to installing equipment," said John Sands, an instructor at Morraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois. >> More