Approaches to Curriculum and Teaching Materials to Bring Out Better Skilled Software Engineers-An Indian Perspective

Abstract: Development of Curriculum and delivery materials has undergone changes over a period of time, in undergraduate engineering degree system in Indian universities. However, there exists a gap between industry expectations in IT field and skills and knowledge that the graduating engineers possess and this continues to grow. A similar situation has been seen in the developed countries like USA, UK and Australia. Several researchers and practitioners have discussed and tried to come up with innovative approaches to teaching software engineering and IT as a whole. In India, it is of vital importance that steps be taken to address this issue seriously. This paper discusses some of the measures that have been implemented so that this gap is reduced and software engineers with better skills are produced. Changes to curriculum, industry-academia collaboration through conferences, sabbaticals etc., industry internships and live projects for final year students are some of the measures that have been discussed in this paper. The implementation of these measures may lead to fulfilling the growing requirement for skilled software engineers who can handle the industry challenges.