Curricula Challenges in Computing / IT Disciplines in the Wake of Rapid Technological Advances, Changing Jobs Landscape, and Demands of Societal Needs

The rapid advances in Computing, Communications, and Information Technologies have had tremendous impacts on various aspects of the lives of vast sections of humanity in such a short time. They have (a) created numerous kinds of new jobs, (b) made several other kinds of jobs to disappear due the kinds of automation they have created, and (c) transformed many professions based on their penetration in various facets of workflow. While these technological advances have resulted in many benefits to our society, they have also created many problems. Also, there are several other more prevalent problems in today’s society than in the past, and the advances of technologies have yet to be put to effective use to solve them. These technological advances and their effects on our lives, on the jobs landscape, and the demands on these technologies to solve societal problems are expected to grow further in the near future. In the wake of these, from a higher education point of view, there are tremendous challenges in keeping the curricula in the Computing/IT disciplines up-to-date and relevant. In this paper, we will (a) briefly trace the major milestones in the developments of Computing, Communications, and Information Technologies, (b) give an overview of the current pressing societal problems, (c) present the projected trends in jobs landscape, and (d) outline some ways of keeping curricula in Computing/IT relevant in the wake of the challenges.