Don't portray poor scorers as failure: ASCI updates advertising guidelines for education sector

NEW DELHI: Education sector has been among the top violators of advertising code for the past few years. Taking a note of this, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has updated its guidelines for advertising educational institutions, programmes, and Ed-Tech platforms with more focus on mental health and well-being.

The council formulated the guidelines after public consultation that started on March 14 and was concluded on April 15, 2023. “The exercise was undertaken with the aim of establishing a set of just and equitable principles that concern a critical industry in the country: education,” the ASCI said.

In the Annual Complaints Report 2022–23, classical education ranked second among the top violative categories with 13.8% of total ads that did not adhere to ASCI’s guidelines.

“While ASCI’s existing education guidelines require educational entities to substantiate any claims they make in their advertisements with relevant evidence, this latest update ensures that the advertisers are also mindful that their ads consider the students’ mental and physical well-being,” it said.

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New guidelines for education-related ads

The amendments state that ads by educational institutions that offer education and training programmes should not stereotype students based on their gender, or appearance, nor portray those who score low as unsuccessful or failures.

It further asked universities, colleges and schools, coaching classes, EdTech platforms and others to comply with the general and the additional advertising code. The new guidelines added for education sectors are.

• An advertisement may not show school students compromising on sleep or meals to study as this normalises unhealthy habits which are detrimental to student health.
• 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.
• Advertisements must also 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.

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On the updated guidelines, Rohit Kumar Singh, ministry of consumer affairs secretary, said: “Education advertising touches almost every citizen in the country. Ensuring the sanctity of advertising in this sector is an important task. 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”.