NEW DELHI: Central Consumer Protection Authority sought public comments on draft guidelines to prevent misleading advertisements such as false claims regarding success rates, number of selections or rankings of students in any competitive exam without providing verifiable evidence, etc in the coaching Sector within 30 days.
"Public comments/suggestions/feedback are solicited and may be provided to the Central Authority within 30 days (until 16th March 2024)," an official statement said.
The coaching sector is marred with tall claims with no accountability. Some coaching institutes indulge in making claims like 100% selection, 100% job guaranteed and guaranteed preliminary and main examination without providing verifiable evidence.
In January, the government had constituted a committee which empanelled owners and management of private coaching institutes to draft the guidelines.
The committee’s chairman is Rohit Kumar Singh, Secretary Department of Consumer Affairs and Chief Commissioner of Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) along with other members CCPA, representatives from Department of Personnel & Training (DoPT), Ministry of Education, National Law University (NLU), Delhi, FIITJEE, Khan Global Studies and Ikigai Law.
The draft guidelines have been framed after detailed deliberations with all stakeholders and defined ‘Coaching’ as tuition, instructions or academic support or learning programme or guidance provided by any person.
The Guidelines shall apply to all the coaching institutes whether online or physical and cover all forms of advertisement regardless of form, format or medium.
The Guidelines also provide that coaching institutes shall not make false claims regarding success rates or number of selections and any other practices that may lead to consumer misunderstanding or subvert consumer autonomy and choice.
The guidelines underline that coaching institutes should not conceal information related to name of course, duration of course opted by successful candidates or any other information which can influence a consumer’s decision to choose their service. Institutes should not attribute students success solely due to coaching institutes.
It is worth noting that, in September 2023, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), India’s consumer regulatory body, had slapped a penalty of Rs 1,00,000 against the civil services preparation coaching institute IQRA IAS Institute for false claims and found misleading advertisements. It had directed the institute to remove misleading advertisements and stop unfair trade practices.