Modern curriculum development should fulfil specific requirements which reflect developments in society. A proposed set of requirements is confronted with two actual curriculum development initiatives in the area of informatics (computing science). The two initiatives are: Computing Curriculum 2001 (IEEE-CS/ACM) and ICF-2000 (IFIP/UNESCO). Comparison shows that the principles used in these two initiatives cover the proposed requirements, although not one-to-one and with different emphasis. A difference in approach between the two curriculum initiatives, concerning the linking of societal needs and student competence development, is illustrated by explaining ICF-2000 Professional Categories and Graduate Profiles.