Junior Centre Excellence

Cybersecurity is a very dynamic field, requiring collaboration and knowledge from different disciplines. It is therefore essential to promote young people's interest in this field already at secondary school level. That is why the Junior Centre of Excellence for Cyber Security (JCEKB) was established at the Secondary School of Informatics, Insurance and Finance in Čichnov with the aim of providing quality graduates for the labour market and possibly further studies.

The JCEKB combines sub-tools such as the creation of a new curriculum, building cooperation between the school and professional partners in cybersecurity from the Network Security Monitoring Cluster and training of teaching staff. The collaboration involves about 45 partners who are involved in the education of pupils within the Cyber Security Incubator. They provide professional practice for pupils, create scenarios for teaching in JCEKB. The active cooperation of teachers, practitioners and talented pupils led to the establishment of the Computer Security Incident Response Team, which is certified by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity. CSIRT is involved in the prevention and protection against cyber threats.

The Cyber Security Programme aspires to be an officially recognised training programme in the Czech Republic. As part of their education, students prepare to face hacker attacks, i.e. how to protect information systems, networks and data, and improve their skills in working with digital technologies and foreign languages. As a result, students regularly place at the top of national cyber security competitions and demand for the programme far exceeds the school's supply. The centre is also used as part of lifelong learning and offers its knowledge to other secondary and primary school teaching staff. The project has thus created a learning community of students, teachers and professionals: the Cyber-Community.

The project also uses a unique technology solution: a cloud virtualization platform that provides a fast, secure, and flexible IT environment and supports the individualization of learning. The project contributes to the economic development of not only the Brno metropolitan area, but also the entire South Moravian Region. It promotes the knowledge economy not only at the beneficiary of the subsidy (the Secondary School of Informatics, Postal Administration and Finance Brno, p.o.), but also at other secondary schools in the region (the project partners are five important, specialized secondary vocational schools in the region). The region is also home to the National Cyber and Information Security Authority and research institutes and science parks engaged in cybersecurity research and development. There is therefore a clear employability of students and this profiles the city and the region.

The project supported the quality of education in the newly conceived field in the secondary school in the field of Cyber Security. Active cooperation of expert teachers, practitioners and talented students led to the establishment of the Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) of our JCEKB, which is certified European Union Agency for Cybersecurity. Cyber-Community has been created as a learning community of teachers, pupils and representatives of the professional community.

Whether it is the tutorials, the JCEKB virtualization environment, its sharing, the support of talented students Computer Security Incident Response, the know-how of the project is transferable to other regions of Europe and across the EU.

https://www.jcekb.cz/o-jcekb/