“Always be passionate towards your dream and aspirations, and never be shy to do more than what is expected of you”, advises Mr. Gaurav Tiwari to the youth

Interview by Yash Panchal

Gaurav Tiwari is currently working as the CED at Mansarovar Dental College, Hospital & Research Centre. He is skilled in SQL, Java, C, C++, and HTML. He is a strong business development professional with a BE degree in Computer Science from R. V. College of Engineering, Bangalore re and an M.Tech in Computer Science from Rajeev Gandhi Technical University, Bhopal.

Mr. Tiwari has been working at Mansarovar since 2012 and earlier worked as a Technical Business Analyst at Deloitte in 2011.

Mr. Tiwari’s experience in the education industry

I have a sincere belief that education is commercialized nowadays and it should not be inserted in the domain of industry. In my experience, administration of education is neither a business nor a profit-seeking venture. The end motive necessarily involves welfare and upliftment of young and enthusiastic minds. I can safely assert that I have dedicated substantial duration of my life in the administration of education to young minds.  It has been a tremendous journey where I have come across students of great academic, practical and artistic potential. What started as a volunteer work decade ago has now taken the shape of passion and integrity for us!

Mr. Tiwari’s philosophy of leadership

My ideal philosophy focuses on exploring the core competency and hidden potential of the students studying in our institute. Education should never mean crude focus on course modulus. Soft skills and confidence among others are the dominating traits of leadership. As an educator, one should deviate from “Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest.” Here at Mansarovar, our objective is to make everyone fit to survive and not just survive, our endeavor should ideally extend to help them shine. As a part of the endeavor, we organize personality development programs, practical presentations, debates, extempore and similar events.

Fortunately, we have also seen great enthusiasm from students who have enrolled and volunteered themselves equally. I cannot thank the parents of these children enough who have also shown a great degree of flexibility in encouraging our radical approach towards education.

Significant challenges faced as the Chief Executive Director of Mansarovar Group of Institutions 

While working with stupendous faculty and lovely young minds, my thinking towards the word “challenge” has also undergone a great deal of transition. I choose to call these challenges “opportunities waiting to be understood and explored”. As CED of this institute, my biggest opportunity is to introduce the right faculty to the right children. Students show great potential towards learning with the right kind of faculty. My job is to introduce such faculty and plan quarterly monitoring. Whenever I am of the opinion that a certain class can be improved, I invite discussion and suggestion from faculty and implement it in our existing scheme.

Read more about faculty present at Mansarovar Group of Institutions here

Mr. Tiwari on how his experience at Deloitte helped him in Mansarovar Group of Institutions

At the risk of stating the obvious, working at Deloitte was altogether a different experience. But I have categorically borrowed the managerial skills, work culture and business ethics from that organization. In my understanding, the work experience of Deloitte has helped me to establish a sustainable model for this institution whether we talk about managing finances, resource utilization, employee engagement, practical approach, rotation of employees etc. It would have become an obvious challenge if I lacked the skills that were inculcated in me while I worked with Delloite.

Views on the growth of students through placement opportunities available at Mansarovar Group of Institutions

Placements and future job perspective do form part and parcel of any educational institution. At Mansarovar, we invite potential recruiters, counselors and industry specialists for discussion and placement drives. Our students have proved their talent by securing placements throughout the length and breadth of the country and even outside India. The collaborative hard work of teachers and students have statistically set high placement standards for Mansarovar Group.

Though our students have been placed with big companies and corporate houses time and again, we believe that making placement the only benchmark of success and growth of an educational institution would be a misplaced and unsound assessment. The real assessment milestone is the contribution that each individual makes towards the society.  Education can be superficial trait if the student achieves tremendous heights in fields that were an independent entrepreneurship setup.

Read more about placement opportunities available at Mansarovar Group of Institutions here

Mr. Tiwari on establishing a relation with the students and his availability for them

My office is open for any kind of assistance to all of my students. I find it imperative to have supervision and guidance of teachers and institutional heads at all times. I have personally counseled several students who shared their difficulty with me. The key is to establish a relation of trust. Not all the students who have problems are loquacious enough to speak about it. As CED, I have a very friendly approach and try to reach out to my students as a reliable figure. Once I am able to assess the problem, I try to come up with a sustainable solution.

Ideal school environment towards Ayurveda, Dental, Nursing according to Mr. Gaurav Tiwari

It is the beauty and burden of any educational institution to be able to inculcate a perfect blend of culture, science, and resources. While Ayurveda is deeply rooted in our Vedic culture, we have made substantial progress in the field of Science and Technology. My understanding of a perfect school environment towards Ayurveda, Dental and Nursing are where the students are taught the benefits of each of them. Though each of these has their own boundaries and limitations, yet the student should respect what each has contributed. 

Top qualities that an aspiring student must possess

I am a firm believer that hard skills can be attained by reading literature by any student. However, in the field of Medical Science and Ayurveda, it is the practical implementation of literature which makes a difference. Any student having an eagerness for practical implementation, care for human life, dedication towards work and strong work ethics is qualified enough to take up these fields.

There is no doubt that Ayurveda, Dental treatment and nursing forms integral part of medical science. There has been an apparent increase in the number of students opting for dental science and nursing in past five years. Given the fact that the possibilities and opportunities that each of them has, it projects itself as a good industry. Going by the assessment of industrial experts, dental science and nursing will constitute huge employment base in the medical industry in the coming future. There is relatively no surplus of human resource in Dental and nursing industry. Therefore prospective students can focus on these two fields which ensure respectable career and well-paying job.

Goals in mind for Mansarovar for the next five years

We have been working in this sector for a substantial period now. We have achieved great milestones in our journey which we embarked with a very small step. But education is an ongoing process. Each and every person is a student to the teacher called Life. At Mansarovar, we have been planning to extend the gift of knowledge to other districts as well. The problem of territorial isolation of prospective students will be appropriately resolved by the establishment of more and more branches of this institute. We also plan to penetrate into other specialized courses.

Suggestions for the current youth and the aspiring students

My only suggestion to my dear students and aspiring youth is that always be passionate towards your dream and aspirations and never be shy to do more than what is expected of you. Your dreams might or might not exceed your grasp.  But this should never discourage you from working towards what you strongly believe in. Institutional education is only a mode of injecting necessary skill in your life. But it is your own will that will decide how beautifully you adopt and blossom those skills.

Mr. Tiwari’s views on seeing India in the field of Ayurveda & Nursing 10 years down the line

India is the global hub for Ayurveda. Indian Ayurveda has provided more cures and disease prevention methods than any other country. Ayurveda is India’s gift to humanity and it has been gracefully accepted and recognized worldwide. People suffering from critical diseases have found shelter and safe abode under the vast branches of Ayurveda. Lifelong ailments have been miraculously cured with precision which has baffled modern scientific understanding. Though we have projected and showed our ability to treat diseases with Ayurveda, yet we should not forget that we have not explored each and every aspect of Ayurveda.

As the popular Ayurveda quote tells us “For every illness or ailment known to man, that God has a plant out here that will heal it. We just need to keep discovering the properties for natural healing” we have to believe and invest in exploring the healing properties of nature. It is my understanding that within ten years we would be having Ayurvedic healing treatments for thousands of more diseases which even allopathy finds hard to treat. Not only it will encourage medical tourism in India, it will also help us re-establish and solidify our roots to Indian Vedic culture. Ayurvedic treatments unlike surgeries and allopathy do not uproot the financial stability of an individual and hence deserves more exploration. The ancient gift of Ayurveda will create more jobs and employment than we ever predicted. I am humbled merely by being associated to this Banyan Tree as a small leaf.