Educational institutions or edtech platforms cannot create a false sense of urgency that could accentuate anxieties among school students or parents through their ads . Such ads also cannot project average or poorer scorers as unsuccessful or demotivated or depressed or unhappy or receiving less appreciation from parents, teachers or peers.
These are part of the revised guidelines released by the Advertising Standards Council of India for educational institutions, programmes, and platforms on Tuesday.
“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,” it added
The revised guidelines also stated that while an ad may feature students of any gender, it 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,” the guidelines added.
Manisha Kapoor, CEO and Secretary General, ASCI, told businessline that existing education ad guidelines were largely focused on checking on misleading claims by educational institutions.
“The updated guidelines will ensure that such ads refrain from messaging that can cause mental and physical harm, especially of school students ,’ she said. Kapoor added that the guidelines will also ensure that ads by institutions and edtech platforms refrain from harping on stereotypes focusing on unhealthy competition and accentuating anxieties.
The guidelines were revised after a public consultation by ASCI. This comes at a time when the education sector has been among the top violators of advertising norms for the past few years.
In ASCI’s annual complaints report 2022–23, classical education ranked second among the top violative categories, accounting for 13.8 per cent of ads that flouted ASCI’s guidelines
In a statement, Rohit Kumar Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Consumer Affairs, 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”.