Scottish Education

Becoming an Academy is 100% free and gives organisations access to a plethora of courses and resources, including virtual lab simulation tools, in a curriculum that spans cyber, networking, programming, and more. Benefits include:

• Facilitate Teaching: Gain access to 1600+ hours of high quality, up-to-date, and vendor agnostic content spanning Networking, Cybersecurity, and Programming topics. You can view the courses on offer at netacad.com/all-courses and skillsforall.com. Content delivery is extremely flexible and can be self-paced, instructor-led, offered as a stand-alone course, or embedded into an existing course offering.

• Practical Tools: Gain unlimited access to tools such as Packet Tracer; a state-of-the-art simulation tool through which students can build, manage, and troubleshoot networks. Practical tools also include self-assessment tools whereby students can check their understanding with correct/incorrect scoring. Teachers can launch customisable quizzes and view students' progress to help identify potential areas additional support is required. 

• Teacher training: We offer free, self-paced, and online instructor training three times per year. You can view this pageto learn more.

• Student success: Help your students stand out from the crowd with an industry-aligned skills-to-jobs curriculum. 95% of NetAcad students shared that a Cisco certification course helped them get a job or further educational opportunity. 

• Community: In becoming an Academy, you become a part of the Cisco Networking Academy community. As well as getting support from a dedicated Academy Support Centre, we run an Instructor Facebook Page for instructors to expand their network and share best practices, and events hosted by Cisco and NetAcad Partners.  

NetAcad operates as an educational community in which Cisco works with a range of Academy Support Centres (ASCs) such as the Open University. The Open University supports Cisco Academies in Scotland and beyond, as well as working alongside other ASCs based in the UK and Ireland. To find out more about the Open University Cisco ASC and what they do please go to their microsite.

As briefly outlined above, becoming a Cisco Academy presents a range of benefits. Once a Cisco Academy, you can encourage other colleagues to benefit from being Cisco Instructors, enable your institution to use many free resources (including Packet Tracer), and access the Career Ready courses (once Instructor accreditation is complete). ASCs, such as the Open University, provide broad community support (for free) as well as access to an extensive knowledge base.

This offer is open to schools, colleges, apprenticeship training providers, universities, and education focussed charities. In other words, as long as your organisation is not-for-profit; it should be eligible. 

To register you organisation to become a Cisco Academy you can follow this simple process:

1. Apply via https://www.netacad.com/become-an-academy.

2. Once your application has been approved, please follow the instructions within the email. These are to sign a membership agreement and to select an ASC.

3. We will then set up a call to help you get your Academy up and running.