But this is a semantic argument of what is contained in a course. I don't know. You don't know. We don't know.
The point I am trying to make here is that we cannot draw conclusions if we can't see the course plan. I'm not going to try to get into a discussion of what is important and critical and what is not. That's just way too subjective. But just don't rule it out!
Take a look at teaching from a C++11 perspective and pick the topics that fit best into the course plan. That's all I'm suggesting.
There are two problems:Once again, this is where the logic fails. If learning C++03 means the student would stop learning at C++03, teaching C++11 wouldn't fix anything; it would only delay the problem. The student would still stop learning at C++11. Thus the problem is not which standard is taught, the problem is failure to keep up in a constantly moving field. Thus a focus should be on making sure students know that C++ is still evolving and what they learn in the class is not the end all be all.
(1) Keep students up-to-date, and
(2) Make students engage in a constantly moving field.
Both need to be considered because you cannot completely fix (2).
That is not to say I don't agree with you. I do. It's just that it's a different problem that needs solving, and teaching students up-to-date keeps us going forward much better than learning them old standards.