The Jordan Education Initiative (JEI), launched in June 2003, is a high-quality education program that harnesses technology to boost development. The initiative, which is being pioneered in Kingdom of Jordan's schools, resulted from an appeal to business leaders at the World Economic Forum in January 2003 by Cisco's chief executive, John Chambers. He called for like-minded companies to work in partnership to narrow the gap between developed and less-developed countries through better education.

The JEI is supported by 45 organizations, including international companies, local companies and government ministries in Jordan, international donors, and nongovernmental organizations. The initiative supports the Jordan's Educational Reform for a Knowledge Economy program. Among its objectives are curriculum reform, teacher training, adoption of ICT as an enabler of learning, and the improvement of ICT infrastructure in schools.

Cisco provides funding, training, equipment, and other resources. Our support ranges from comprehensive online mathematics lessons for young people to providing technical and educational specialists for the JEI program management office.

In FY2004, other international IT companies contributed a range of support services. For example, Intel and HP provided training and technology in classrooms. Rubicon, a local ITC company, worked with the Cisco Learning Institute to develop more than 2,500 mathematics lesson plans. Teachers and supervisors of the Jordanian Ministry of Education supported the JEI's work and received training in new teaching theory. Microsoft funded the development of an ICT curriculum. FastLink funded an online science curriculum.

In FY2005, JEI will continue to provide 100 schools with online mathematics courses. It will create a curriculum for studying Arabic (funded by France Telecom/Jordan Telecom) and English as a second language, funded by the U.S. government's Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI).

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