Knowledge+Skills

'Being good at something' has many components. One of the obvious parts is that you know a lot. An expert knows a lot about a specific subject. Since this is obvious, it has got all the attention in our schooling. We learn more and become specialized. We value people who know a lot. Also, given a long list of complicated things to learn, its easy to set a exam and give marks for the knowledge in any subject. Naturally, much of the teaching and testing is focused on how much one knows.

Yet there is a second important component to 'Being good at something' and that is - skills. Competency requires not just knowledge but also skills. Only when one has a fair amount of knowledge and high degree of a skill, can he/she be competent. However, our education system has largely ignored development of (say, academic) skills. Skills are difficult to teach, they required longer persuasion and hard-work. Taking the easy-route, schools have ignored teaching and testing skills. While knowledge is specific to a domain, skills are often cross-disciplinary and broad-based.

As a result, we find youngsters, when they finish schools, know a lot but they have mastered very little. Competency = Knowledge + Skills. Unless we are teaching both knowledge and skills, we are unlikely to produce versatile competent students.