CTC releases annual update of IT infrastructure job skills

Earlier this summer, the National Convergence Technology Center (CTC) convened its Business and Industry Leadership Team (BILT) for its annual prioritization – via vote and discussion – of essential entry-level IT job skills students and graduates will need to know in the next 12-36 months. Because higher education curriculum development can proceed slowly, the BILT always looks ahead, answering “what’s next?” rather than “what’s happening now?”

While most quarterly BILT meetings run 90 minutes, that May meeting ran closer to four hours. The BILT members worked through the previous year’s KSA (knowledge, skills, and abilities – plus also tasks) list line by line, ranking each item on a scale of 1 to 4 – a “1” vote means that item can be discarded from curriculum and a “4” means that item must be included in curriculum. After the vote, BILT members discussed and debated both the voting results as well as the wording of each KSA item.

The KSA list is considered a living document; multiple changes each year are common. By comparing this employer-led skills list to course content, educators ensure curriculum aligns with workforce needs. The goal is for programs to use the CTC’s revised KSA list as a foundation in working with their own employers to identify regional KSAs and make students “workforce ready.”

This year’s revision included 22 tasks, 93 knowledge areas, 65 skills, 25 abilities, and 9 industry certifications.

The big changes from 2022 included—

* Adding new knowledge areas to cover basic AI concepts, online resource forums, DevSecOps, and the increasing interconnectivity of IT.

* Clarifying that for IT networking technicians, knowledge of databases typically means understanding database impacts on network systems.

You can download the revised KSA list as an Excel file, a PDF, or as a pre-configured “packaged” Google Form that you can finalize to send to your BILT to conduct the vote. Click here.