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GET certified in 120 hours, said an advertisement of an educational institution. Since that alone would not have got many students interested, it added, for good measure, a promise of a job abroad. Overseas jobs guaranteed, it said, and re-emphasised this yet again: "Job 100 per cent guaranteed." By the time the students realised that this was only an advertisement gimmick and the college had no intention of keeping up its promise, it was too late. This is just one of the many such cases of false and misleading advertisements that come up before consumer courts. Cases that expose the vulnerability of students in the face of such blatant attempts at marketing education, even if it compromises on truth and fair play. This particular case, decided by the national consumer disputes redressal commission on September 14, is yet another grim reminder of the kind of problems that students face vis-`E0-vis false and misleading advertisements, and the absence of an effective mechanism to curb such tendencies. In their complaints, six students of the college alleged that at the time of admission, they were told that the college was part of the Global Tesol College, Canada, which promised guaranteed jobs and a fee refund if they failed to secure jobs. However, after the completion of the course when they demanded jobs, the college said its policies had nothing to do with the Global Tesol College. The district consumer disputes redressal forum, which first heard the case, held the college guilty of unfair trade practice, and directed it to refund the fee along with interest. It also awarded varying amounts of compensation ranging from Rs 7,500 to Rs 20,000 and costs of litigation. The college, however, was unwilling to accept this verdict and argued before the state commission and later the national commission that it had only promised to help students procure jobs and had never made any commitment to get them jobs abroad. Dismissing these contentions at the admission stage itself, the national commission pointed out that the ads were not only misleading in nature, but also totally false as the college had failed to provide the assured jobs. This clearly amounted to unfair trade practice (Tesol India vs Shri Govind Singh Patwal, RP NO 2501 of 2010). In cases such as these, students can get a fee refund and also compensation from the courts, but the attempt should be to ensure that such advertisements do not appear in the first place. One positive development in this direction is the decision of the Advertising Standards Council of India, a self-regulatory body, to specifically address advertisements in the field of education through a separate code. The ASCI has in the past forced false and misleading advertisements pertaining to educational institutions to be taken off the media (on the basis of complaints filed by consumers). The fact that it has now found it necessary to come up with an exclusive code (in addition to its detailed generic code for self regulation in advertising) for educational institutions is a pointer to the increasing number of such advertisements that are causing both parents and students substantial distress, disappointment, financial loss and in many cases, loss of an academic year. The ASCI's efforts are
commendable, but not adequate to completely put a stop to such ads.
The required action is to force educational institutions that indulge
in unfair trade practices to issue corrective advertisements to
completely obliterate the effects of earlier ads. Since no advertiser
will want to spend money on advertisements that bring nothing but
negative publicity, that is the most effective punishment.
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