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Advertising standards panel set rules for educational institutions

Educational institutions promising jobs, admissions, job promotions, high salary will not be able to promote themselves that easily. In a bid to save thousands of students from falling prey to misleading advertisements Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has proposed a new set of guidelines.

According to the new guidelines, the institutions cannot make such tall claims without substantiating it and also assuming full responsibility in the same advertisement. It also discourages institutions from claiming success in placements, student compensations, admission to renowned institutes, marks and rankings, and topper student testimonials unless every such claim is substantiated with evidence.

Prof. Dhananjay Keskar, ASCI's Chairman, who also heads the committee for drafting the guidelines said, "We have been receiving several intra-industry complaints against claims being made in ads of various educational institutions. Many students and parents too have complained to ASCI against claims made in advertisements by educational institutions. So we realised that a variety of these claims in advertisements need to be regulated through a set of guidelines."

Further the guidelines will also be prohibiting institutions and programmes from claiming recognition, authorization, accreditation, or affiliations without having proper evidence. "Name and place of the affiliated institution which provides degrees and diplomas on behalf of the advertiser who may not be accredited by a mandatory authority, should be prominently displayed in the advertisement," Keskar added.

The new set of guidelines was proposed after a significant amount of advertising activity was recorded in the education sector in last couple of years. According to the recent ADEX report, advertising by educational institutions have gone up by leaps and bounds. Last year's figures show that 8 per cent of all advertising expenses in print media came from the educational sector.

The new advertising content guidelines will apply to ads of all educational institutions, coaching classes and educational programmes. The draft of the guidelines has been put up for review, feedback and suggestions on ASCI's official website. After September 6, based on the feedback received from the public and concerned stakeholders, the ASCI Committee will finalise the guidelines.

Hemant Kumar, a student seeking admission in some good management institute said, "There are hundred of misguiding ads floating in the market. Most students also get attracted through such ads. So this would be a great mechanism to check all such advertisements."

What's ASCI?
AIn the recent past ASCI has put out specific guidelines for advertisements in automobile and food and beverage sectors. ASCI is a self-regulatory voluntary organization for advertising content of the advertising industry. The Role and Functioning of the ASCI & its Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) is in dealing with complaints received from consumers and industry, against advertisements which are considered as false, misleading, indecent, illegal, leading to unsafe practices, or unfair.