Abstract
The engineering curriculum in most South African universities develops computational thinking skills in students by emphasising the teaching of a programming language instead of the development of computational models. Computational thinking is a well-defined, unambiguous step-by-step, logical thought process that produces an outcome that can be implemented either by human beings or a computer (through a programming language). The development of computational thinking capability is vital to developing proficient engineers who are well-equipped for work in the modern world. In this paper, we discuss the key computational thinking concepts and then analyse how computational thinking skills can be incorporated in the engineering curriculum. A classification framework for the development of computational thinking in engineering students is proposed to enhance these skills in engineering students.