Tunisia
Academy Profile
École Supérieure des Communications de Tunis
Regional Academy
Established February 2001
As early as 1997, engineers in Tunisia noticed that it was time for their country to increase their pace with the technological revolution occurring around the globe. Motivated by a vision to create a school that would train students on a higher technical level in systems and telecommunications networks, on May 11, 1998, they established the École Supérieure des Communications de Tunis, also known as Sup’com. The engineering and IT school is located in Tunisia’s capital city, Tunis. With a tenured faculty of about 70, including 45 researchers and engineers, the School’s curriculum spreads out over 3 years of instruction and training. Students can choose from a variety of majors including telecommunications, networks, and multimedia. The School also contributes to the national research efforts in the field of communications.
In February of 2001 Sup’com decided it wanted to become a part of the Cisco Networking Academy Program. Two networking instructors, Rashed Hamza and Hajer Tounsi, were the first instructors to teach the new Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) courses. The goal was that the two would initiate the program and eventually train 5 to 10 other instructors to offer numerous class sections.
Sup’com integrates the Cisco Networking Academy curriculum with the school’s normal course of study. All second year engineering students at Sup’com are required to take the first semester of the four CCNA semesters. During this semester they become acquainted with networks and with the Cisco program, and can then choose to pursue CCNA semesters 2-4. The first class of CCNA graduates included 35 students, a third of which were women. Since the success of Sup’com’s trial run of the CCNA curriculum, the number of students enrolled in the Program has multiplied. So many students show interest in the Program that students of the same major form their own class section. Some telecommunications working professionals join the Cisco Networking Academy, but the School caters more towards its students, who initially enroll in the program without any additional fees.
Sup’com prides itself on its significant and increasing percentage of female students, which they note is higher than the percentage of females in many other major engineering schools in different countries. For this reason they naturally have many females participating in the Cisco program.
All of their Cisco students have access to 4 computer labs, each equipped with 15 PCs and LAN connection.
For more information about Sup’com, please visit: http://www.supcom.mincom.tn