Educational entities will now not only have to substantiate any claims made in their advertisements with relevant evidence, but also be mindful that their ads consider the mental and physical well-being of students.
The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) updated its guidelines for advertising educational institutions, programmes, and platforms.
This comes after education ranked second among the top violative categories in ASCI's Annual Complaints Report 2022-23 where 13.8 percent of total ads that did not adhere to ASCI’s guidelines. Over the past few years too, it has remained among the top violative sectors.
These new guidelines include ads by educational institutions, including universities, colleges and schools, coaching classes, EdTech platforms and others that offer education and training programmes.
Every educational institute advertising that the institute itself, or the course or programme is official, recognised, authorised, accredited, approved, registered, affiliated, endorsed or has a legally defined situation will have to substantiate the same with evidence.
Guidelines also state that in case the advertised institution or programme is not recognised or approved by any mandatory authority, but is affiliated with another institution, which is approved or recognised by a mandatory authority, then the full name and location of the said affiliating institution shall also be stated in the advertisement.
Say no to stereotypes
A lot of emphasis has also been put on avoiding stereotyping students. For instance, as per the new guidelines, all educational entities should not stereotype students based on their gender, or appearance, nor portray those who score low as unsuccessful or failures.
Ads must not suggest that students with high scores are always associated with stereotypical characteristics such as wearing thick glasses.
"This does not prevent advertisements from depicting such students so long as they do not suggest that only these students are successful," the guidelines state.
An advertisement, the updates guidelines state, may not show school students compromising on sleep or meals to study as ASCI says this normalises unhealthy habits which are detrimental to
student health.
"While fierce pressure in education is a reality, advertising must not perpetuate this problem. normalise it or exploit student and parental vulnerability. Based on our Ed-Next study, such issues were identified, and post extensive consultation with different stakeholders, we are
now issuing the updated guidelines," Manisha Kapoor, CEO and Secretary General, ASCI, said.
Some of the other updated guidelines include:
- Advertisements shall not make claims with a numerical value of 100 percent with respect to claims that are abstract and non-quantifiable in nature. This includes claims like a guarantee of 100 percent Placement/Job assistance, 100 percent Job opportunities/ Job oriented courses.
- Visuals of the infrastructure of any institution shown in an advertisement shall be real and existing at the time of the advertisement’s release.
- An advertisement stating the number of passing out students placed for jobs shall also state the total number of students passing out from the placed class.
- While an advertisement may show disappointment with low scores, it must not portray an average or poor scorer as an unsuccessful student or a failure,
or show him/ her/ them as demotivated, depressed or unhappy, or receiving
less love or appreciation from parents, teachers or peers.
- An advertisement must not create a false sense of urgency or fear of missing out that could accentuate anxieties amongst school students, or their parents.
- While an advertisement may feature students of any gender, the advertisement must not suggest that certain subjects are associated with particular genders alone.
“The ASCI guidelines address the various issues that plague the sector and we hope that the industry will follow these in letter and spirit. I would like to
reiterate that misleading ads are also a violation of the Consumer Protection Act and all necessary steps will be taken to keep our citizens safe," Rohit Kumar Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Consumer Affairs said in a statement.
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