Two Bermudians who recently became the first ever to qualify as certified Cisco Academy instructors were formally introduced to the media yesterday.Minister of Government Estates and Information Services, Michael Scott announced Phase II of Bermuda’s Cisco Academy that starts later this month.Classes begin at the end of September at the Bermuda College in a fully outfitted “Cisco laboratory”. The classes will be headed by AW Eugene Phillips and Lionel Thomas, the two who emerged at the end of the course as the first two Bermudians qualified as Cisco Academy instructors.Mr Phillips is an Information Technology professional with 23 years of experience in the field. He gained his teaching experience as a substitute teacher at The Berkeley Institute. He will be the senior instructor for Cisco Academy in Bermuda.Lional Thomas has experience “building highly interactive web applications and flash/action script development”. He has been signed on as the junior instructor for the courses that start at Bermuda College later this month.Both men view the new posts as an opportunity for young Bermudians to gain globally recognised certification that will qualify them to work anywhere around the world.The Minister, while offering his congratulations, also commended the 37 successful candidates who will be the first to complete the course. The students will undergo an “intensive and rigorous course of study during the course of a full academic year”.“Each participant must successfully complete each of the four modules at a pass rate of 80 percent and continue to excel at this rate as the modules increase in difficulty as one progresses from module one to module four.“I have no doubt that as we embark on this Phase II of this initiative that Mr Phillips and Mr Thomas will experience a similar degree of success with their students as they experienced under the tutelage of Allison McIntyre,” he said.Ms McIntyre guided the two instructors through the qualification process as Programme Coordinator of the HEART College of Innovation and Technology in Jamaica. Four candidates applied, two qualified.The Minister said: “I am here to confirm this Government’s commitment to the 37 candidates who were accepted as students. Successful students had a minimum of a two-year degree, IT certifications or had passed the College Placement Test administered by the Bermuda College.“These students are now poised to begin the process of securing the Cisco Certified Network Associate designation. I wish them every success as upon completion they will be better positioned to secure employment in this fascinating field of Information Technology,” said Mr Scott.“I might also add that our intention is to reach out to the persons who were not successful and to assist them in realising their aspirations of becoming Cisco students.”The first set of students are scheduled to begin courses at the end of the month, the second set will being after Christmas in December at the Bermuda College.