Engineering Education - A Great Challenge to Software Engineering

It is generally accepted that software engineering shares many features with classical engineering disciplines like marketing issues, warranty and others. This fact can be also illustrated on the case of contemporary lack of IT students like in other engineering disciplines. The dynamics of software engineering and the requirement that IT should be widely used in other disciplines imply that IT professional should understand various knowledge domains and skills like but more intensively than in classical engineering disciplines. This ability is sometimes called versatility. It is difficult for teachers to teach it as they are induced to do research being typically fragmented into small research areas. We give examples when IT experts should behave like classical engineers and when software engineering specific skills are needed. An example is the solution of the problem of falling interests of young people to study engineering and science disciplines, software engineering inclusive. The solution of this issue can have the greatest long term impact on engineering education. It can moreover change the rules for the accessibility and analysis of the data collected by e- government systems. We show that it is necessary to apply IT tools to evaluate the quality of schools and education systems by the success on labor market. It can change the attitudes of public to engineering and science education and improve the management of the entire education system. It is the biggest challenge that software engineering has ever faced.