As government officials, you play a significant role in the growth of the global economy in the 21st century, which includes preparing today's students for tomorrow's work force. Equally important is to ensure that the students from your respective states have a high level of academic achievement, so they are prepared for higher education and a career in the new Internet economy.

The Cisco Networking AcademyŽ Program is a partnership between businesses, government, education and community organizations to form an ecosystem that delivers a broad range of services and support needed to grow tomorrow's workforce. The Cisco Networking Academy Program is a comprehensive e-learning program that provides students with the Internet technology skills essential in a global economy.

The curricula included in this program consists of 16 courses covering a broad range of topics from basics on how to build and maintain a network, to creating a website, object-oriented programming, and more complex IT concepts such as applying advanced troubleshooting tools. Our courses are designed to give students hands-on technical experience to help prepare them for IT careers as well as post-secondary IT-related degrees. A number of the Academy courses are aligned to national and/or state standards in science, math and language arts. In addition, soft skills such as career planning, project planning and teamwork are integrated into each curriculum.

The Cisco Networking Academy Program is a network of more than 10,000 Academies in over 150 countries with curriculum taught in nine different languages. Over 400,000 students participate in Academies operating in high schools, colleges and universities, technical schools, community-based organizations, and other educational programs around the world. The success of Academy students is our main goal, and achievement of that objective is what has created such tremendous growth in the number of Academy graduates we are seeing globally.