Ict curricula Guidelines (2nd draft)

4.2 What Content is Needed?

The second part of the working group’s investigation related to the curricula content. The purpose was to evaluate the content of each study programme in relation to the ICT industry's requirements for graduates' qualifications. But just what are the industry's requirements for a university study programme? This question was answered first.
The content of curricula is always a key issue for discussions inside faculties, as well as for dialogue between industry and universities. University professors ask industry these key questions:

• 
  what competencies do graduates need in industry?
  

• 
  what knowledge should be taught?
  

The question about the competencies required can be answered easily by industrialists. Since they have to deal with opportunities and problems in their day to day activities, they are very clear about what technical, professional and personal competencies are needed in order to be successful in business.

A wide breadth of technical skills are needed by all employees, while singular in-depth skills are needed for people working in particular specialised areas. The ability to take a systems perspective is required. Communicating effectively with others in different fields is a necessary attribute. Working in multi-disciplinary multi-cultural project teams is a way of life. The ability to take initiatives and create system solutions or solve problems is fundamental.
However it is not so easy to identify what knowledge is required to achieve the desired competencies. Experienced people know what specialised knowledge is needed for their particular activities, because this is vital for success in their daily work. However specialised knowledge can only be deployed if it is built on the foundation of a solid broad general understanding. This fact is often neglected. Identifying this foundation is much more difficult.
So what is the ideal content distribution of an ICT curriculum? Is there only one optimum solution, or are there many possible ways to achieve excellent results? The working group considered these issues, and came to the following recommendations.