"Vendor material is concrete proof that what they are studying is current, relevant and valid and gives them the feeling that they are studying things that are required out there in the market place," he said.

"For me, the important thing is that we produce students out of our technical training institute who understand the approaches and the underlying paradigms that the Linux Operating System uses and can feel comfortable working in that environment. I feel it is very important for training institutions to provide the underlying knowledge that is required in order to understand how different kinds of operating systems can enable you to approach the same kind of problem in a number of different ways."

CIT is the fourth Australian TAFE to become a Red Hat Academy, joining North Sydney TAFE in NSW, Burnie in Tasmania and also Chisolm in Victoria which, unlike the other colleges, offers the program as a separate short course at additional cost.

Any school or college wanting to be an official Red Hat Academy must get staff trained with Red Hat first.

Red Hat services manager Peter Durie said the vendor was actively trying to push its Red Hat Academy program to a number of academic and training institutions. He is currently talking with a number of universities, as well as other TAFEs in Queensland and Western Australia.