Accrediting over 1000 teachers - was never the plan!

Once upon a time - or some overused literary introduction referring to the past. There was a problem - not enough teachers were becoming Cisco instructors. The numbers had dropped off - for many reasons. Economics, competition, ageing population, saturation, education system under duress ... etcetera etcetera.

After various meetings, discussions and attempts at rebooting the situation. Over many years ... I became somewhat miffed (I could write the full list of expletives here, I am sure you can work them out).

One fatefully cliched meeting removed the biscuit and made me splutter my coffee. Considerably irritated, I decided to press the f**k it button. Motivated, after winning a very modest prize from Cisco which we did not know how to spend. We knew that we could gain some traction - however, we did not appreciate exactly how much.

1. The first run - Feb17 - we saw 193 pass and become accredited to teach the CCNA1 (this was a cohort of 1130)
2. By the second run, Oct19 - we saw another 100 (this was a smaller cohort of 598).
3. Stirred into action we offered in collaboration with CompTIA the IT-Essentials - seeing 322 pass (out of 1200)
4. Then with the support of the Institute of Coding - we offered the CCNA1 again and saw 293 pass (out of 1250).
5. Behind the scenes we have run a number of Silent CyberOps courses with at least another 100 passing.

This means that in around two years since our first large scale accreditation activity - we have accredited over 1000 teachers. This is a drop in the ocean - nothing compared to the scale of the challenge. However it is a start.

Our plan is to offer the CyberOps, CCNA2 and IT-Essentials from September until Feb20 before taking a break. We are looking towards the future - but for now, we know that it is important that we have a period of reflection before deciding what we accomplish next.