The current situation has significant impacts on all training and education organizations. As our network of certified professionals spans the globe, I know that everyone is at varying degrees of shutdown, based on your local conditions and government mandates. We felt it important to notify you of changes Fortinet has made, and will be making, to the NSE certification program to adjust to this situation.
As of March 9th, all training classes, delivered by Fortinet, that were scheduled to take place as traditional classroom ILT sessions were converted to Virtual ILT sessions.
On March 16th, Pearson VUE closed most of its proctored testing centers around the world. It is unclear when access to NSE certification exams will be widely available, either through remote proctoring or test centers re-opening. As a contingency, Fortinet is extending NSE certification expiry dates for six months, from the date of the test center closures, March 16, 2020. This extension applies to all NSE levels. We will continue to monitor the situation and communicate with you any additional changes.
We’re also pleased to announce that on March 30th, we launched a free training initiative, focused on NSE 1 and NSE 2 training for the general public. These two courses cover important cybersecurity best practices, and will be a valuable resource for your customers to ensure their remote workforce remains secure.
In addition, we will offer a new free course called FortiGate Essentials targeted to technical
individuals. The FortiGate Essentials course consists of a subset of NSE 4 training modules and will be made available as self-paced training. While this does not replace an NSE 4 certification, it may serve as a good resource as you prepare for the NSE 4 certification.