Coaching institutes roll out misleading print ads

Over the last few days, ASCI has received three complaints against these institutions that are currently under process.

After the recent declaration of results of competitive exams, like NEET and IIT-JEE, many institutes took out print ads, featuring the toppers. These institutes claim that the students were enrolled in full-time courses. The ads seem misleading, because a student who has secured a high AIR, can't possibly be also taking full-time courses at multiple institutes.

Responding to a query from afaqs!, the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) said that over the last few days, it has received three complaints against educational institutes that are under process.

It is also interesting to note that these are not small-font print ads lurking in the corner of the middle pages, but full-page ads in publications like Times of India and Hindustan Times that are likely to go unnoticed.

A July 2022 ASCI report revealed that the education sector is one of the biggest violators of its guidelines. ASCI had screened 1,728 ads from this category in FY22 - a 23% jump from last year. 99% of the ads needed modifications and 1% were dismissed.

6% of the total ads belonged to the ed-tech category. Nine ads that featured celebrities, were found to be misleading, and 12 suffered influencer disclosure violations.

Most of the violative claims under the education sector, pertained to leadership, awards, rankings and job guarantee claims. Comparative superlative claims, like highest success, lowest fees, etc., and performance outcome claims, like best results, success assured, were also common.