LONDON, UK, May 31, 2005 - The State of Jersey Department for Education, Sport and Culture has installed a Cisco Systems® content networking solution to help speed up access to multimedia and education content for the island's 45 primary and secondary schools. By caching content on Cisco® content engines located at schools, teachers and pupils can access a host of multimedia and learning support material almost instantly from any classroom on the island.

The Cisco solution will also help Jersey improve education by sharing expensive and limited resources such as specialist teachers, complex and costly scientific experiments and one-off lectures. These can be videotaped and archived for future use by any school. Cisco's intelligent content management software provides Jersey with a highly flexible and dynamic method for monitoring unsupervised Web surfing and helping to ensure that no unwanted material is presented to children.

"The type of learning tools and material we can provide, together with the speed and ease of access by all schools on the island, means that we can significantly improve the learning experience for pupils and the quality and diversity of the material available to help teachers," said Jeremy Thomas, senior ICT project manager, States of Jersey Department for Education, Sport and Culture. "In classrooms around Jersey, the Cisco content network has made using information from the Internet like turning the pages of a book."

Content will comprise learning applications, multi-media material and streaming video from organisations such as specialist e-learning providers and the general Internet which teachers can use to develop more content-rich lessons. The Cisco content networking solution used by Jersey comprises Cisco CE510 and Cisco CE565 content engines, which manage collection, storage and distribution of material to the schools overnight making access to content very fast. The solution was developed and installed by Cisco Gold Certified Partner, Logicalis.

"The Cisco content networking solution around Jersey schools is a good example of how Cisco technology can help improve important aspects of life such as our children's education," said Simon Culmer, Public Sector Operation Director for Cisco Systems UK Ireland. "It means the Jersey Government can use its education resources more effectively and make learning a much richer and interesting experience for pupils."