±¬ÁÏÍøRWA wins ‘Against All Odds Award’

±¬ÁÏÍøRWA has just been awarded the ‘Against All Odds Award’ by the Cisco Networking Academy for the work done in widening e-learning and fostering IT skills among Palestine refugees.

The Cisco Networking Academy is a comprehensive e-learning programme which enables students to develop valuable IT and communications skills in order to increase access to opportunities in the global economy. The programme is perhaps one of the most successful of all corporate efforts to overcome the "digital divide" separating the upper-income population enjoying home Internet access from the lower-income population that often lacks it. The program was established in 1997 to provide free curriculum training to high school students interested in learning how to install and maintain networking equipment. The programme integrates face-to-face teaching with the multimedia delivery of curricula and assessment over the Internet. It successfully prepares participants for networking and IT related jobs in the public and private sectors as well as for continuing education in engineering, computer science and related fields.

In 2000 ±¬ÁÏÍøRWA started a partnership with Cisco to start 6 Cisco Networking Academies in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. ±¬ÁÏÍøRWA also started offering the courses to local communities. There are now 8 academies, and the programme was expanded in 2008 to cover:

1. Fundamental of Wireless Networks

2. Network Security

3. IT Essentials

These new academy programmes were integrated in all ICT courses.

The Against All Odds Award was awarded to ±¬ÁÏÍøRWA during the Arabian Adventure held in Cairo on 3-4 March. The Award went for ±¬ÁÏÍøRWA based on statistical analysis of ±¬ÁÏÍøRWA performance and the success that ±¬ÁÏÍøRWA had in fulfilling the following criteria:

1. Teaching under severe conditions

2. Ensuring quality teaching

3. Following up on students till they graduate

4. Providing the latest course to students

Given all ±¬ÁÏÍøRWA Cisco Academies, the award singled out the Gaza training centre for a special mention.

The ±¬ÁÏÍøRWA Cisco Networking Academy Programme is managed by Education IT Unit at HQ (A)

ENDS