Competency based Education (CBE) for IT Security: Towards Bridging the Gap

Abstract

Skills gap is a common problem between university products and industry needs. This is apparent in many, if not all of the areas. The gap plays a role in the productivity or development of a given industry, as well as the unemployed rates. In a competitive world, employers are always looking for the best candidates for employment, with the best being defined as being competent both technically and professionally. We contend that competency based curriculum can provide a means to narrow and even close the skills gap. In this paper, we present a Competency Based Curriculum Model that can be used as a guide to develop a competency based curriculum. This model will be employed to develop a competency based curriculum for IT Security Engineers.