With recent progress in the development of large-scale, general-purpose, fault-tolerant quantum computing (QC), significant effort is being made in the cybersecurity community to create viable long-term solutions mitigating the threat of quantum computers breaking classical public-key based security schemes. The current post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standardization process led by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has standardized cryptographic protocols designed to be resistant to QC. PQC education is still in its early stages, with limited curricular materials available for broad distribution in an appropriate academic format. Another challenge is developing curricula for students with different levels of computing and cryptographic preparedness. The modular approach to curriculum development has been proven to be an effective method for introducing new concepts.

The authors of this work have several years of experience teaching cryptography and PQC courses at two academic institutions. We introduce two types of PQC instruction modules at varying levels of complexity: Awareness and Proficiency. The suggested contents, learning outcomes, and duration for each module are presented.