Which is more important, skill or knowledge?

We’re seeing lots of evidence that suggests that there is a growing gap between what
universities are producing and what industry needs in terms of engineering graduates, and
not just in India, but worldwide.

What is interesting is it is often described as a “skills gap”, and not a “knowledge gap”. Are
people just being sloppy with their words… we’re beginning to think not.

Much of our engineering education has become focused on knowledge acquisition at the
expense of the development of skills.

Knowledge acquisition fits nicely with the testing-based assessment models that are so
popular in educational institutions in so many countries, whereas skills require productivity
and behavior assessments that few in education are able to design and deliver in the way
that business wants and needs.

Skills are a different kind of knowledge. A bright person can look at a complex thing and
come to understand and “know it” very quickly. Developing the skills to apply the
knowledge effectively and wisely is something else all together. Much of the difficulty we
are facing with education is that we aren’t recognizing the productivity and behavior aspects
of both engineering as a discipline, and business in general.