Strategies for Promoting Better Interaction between Higher Education and IT Industry

For a sustained development of higher education and IT industry, it is essential to have a close collaboration between them. As provider of software talents to IT industry, higher education in software engineering must play immeasurably active role in meeting and adapting to the development needs of IT industry. Higher education institutions need to update advanced educational concepts and explore advanced educational measures to ensure the quality of software graduates. As main consumer of software engineering graduates, IT industry also needs to have positive attitudes toward education, and collaborate closely with education. IT industry needs to be involved in curriculum development and policy making for higher education. The effective interaction between higher education and IT industry needs these two key players to do great effort together. This paper proposes some strategies to strengthen the interaction between them, and give some examples that the authors´ school are exploring and implementing now.