Guru-Shishya Parampara

   We all must have heard the term of "Guru-Dakshina" from a story of Mahabharata when Dronacharya asked for the right thumb from Ekalavya's right hand, which Ekalavya offered to his guru Drona without hesitation. What made Ekalavya possible to render his thumb to Drona without hesitation was the trust and the thirst to gain knowledge from a person like Drona whom he admired.

     If we relate this story in current scenario between students and teacher's relationship we would hardly see a Guru-Shishya relationship like we have seen between Dronacharya and Arjun.
     In today's world sacredness level between Guru-Shishya relationship is to the lowest point including country like India which had an existence of rich ethos talking about such relationship. Today many people end-up becoming professors,lecturers & teachers only to avoid the heat of the corporate organizational politics which they would face in the corporate world. However by doing so, such professors or teachers do not give up their thirst of earning income like they could earn otherwise in corporate sector. This  made the educational institutions and its components to loose its sacred objectives and turn itself into another corporate sector. Even from students perspective considering Teachers or Gurus equal to God has became an history. Students started seeing teachers as employees working for students to provide them with the required amount knowledge. Hence the thirst to gain knowledge by students is only limited to the point till the teacher whom students thinks as their employee behaves in accordance with them.
     In economical terms we can argue that due to huge awareness programs by government and sound educational policies such has increase in scholarship programs or ease in availability of study loan etc,the percentage of graduates is higher than the percentage which it used to be earlier 15-20 years back. Therefore, since supply for graduates is more, the unemployment rate is increasing. However this argument could have been rejected if we had sound educational institutions turning young graduate students into entrepreneurs by removing all their ambiguities  rather than making them job seeking executives.
     In India there is a streyotype that instituions such as IIM's,IIT's,AIIMS are the only ones which provides quality education in their respective fields. However according to me these institutions may provide with sound placements but it can't be referred as an institution which provide quality education. Institutions selecting students who are already bright through entrance examination sounds low as "quality educational institutions" when we compare it to an institution which turns an average student into a bright student. However, according to me an educational institution can only be referred as a sound institution when there is a presence of sacred bond between students and teacher.
     This sacred bond include overcoming the trust deficit in the relationship. Students should have faith and thirst to gain knowledge from teacher. And teacher should have the thirst to empower their students and not just consider students as a source of their income.

-Francis lazar