FIITJEE, a coaching institute for IIT-JEE aspirants, drew flak over its advertisement in a newspaper claiming that one of its ex-students would have acquired a higher score if she had not switched to a competitor's institute.
The advertisement also called the competitor an ‘EVIL institute', alleging it had a negative impact on the student's score.
This is perhaps the WORST ad I have seen in recent times. Not in terms of aesthetics (this is a standard design template by now) but in terms of the content.
March 18, 2024
It's one thing to mount a few students—with their name and photograph—as super-achievers for cracking an entrance exam to… pic.twitter.com/muVfNwego4An Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer, Katyayani Sanjay Bhatia, shared a post on X with an image of the ad and wrote, "A new low in advertisements @fiitjee. You are posting the picture of a child saying that she performed badly because she left your institute!"
Though the ad even had the photograph of the girl, the officer has blurred the image in her post.
A new low in advertisements @fiitjee . You are posting the picture of a child saying that she performed badly because she left your institute! I have blurred the picture because I don't believe in this disgusting way of claiming your superiority by belittling a girl child. pic.twitter.com/W18Rd9rh1s
March 17, 2024"We talk about parents putting pressure on kids for IIT JEE, but what about this manner of advertising where you shame a student for not performing? And claiming superiority by claiming that she would have performed had she been in your institute? Shameful @fiitjee," Bhatia said in another post.
"And it doesn't stop here. They are claiming their superiority by talking about the institute with a 'history of suicides'. Shameful. Suicides in Kota are an issue that concerns us all above petty competition but claiming in this manner is cheap," she further wrote on X.
Bhatia urged the education ministry and Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Smriti Irani, to take note of such advertising malpractices.
She further added that no institute had the right to shame students to claim their supremacy and remarked that the newspaper should have been mindful of the ads they placed on page 1. "We owe responsibility," she added.
Take a look at how netizens have reacted to FIITJEE's latest advertisement:
@fiitjee should be sued for criminal harassment and defamation. That's the only way to fix them.
March 17, 2024I have respect for Fiitjee due to their teachers but This is horrible advertising!
March 17, 2024
Don't know how this was approved in the first place that too, on the first page of a national newspaper 🤦🏻Atrocious!
March 17, 2024
Hope her parents sue the institution.Earlier responding to another post on the suicide of a 25-year-old IIT-IIM graduate, Bhatia said, “The notion that we must be working 24*7 to show our sincerity is so misplaced and so wrong! We just glorify burnout and slogging - so sad. I wish we could collectively change notions.”
Absolutely. The notion that we must be working 24*7 to show our sincerity is so misplaced and so wrong! We just glorify burnout and slogging - so sad. I wish we could collectively change notions. https://t.co/V1Oa0qwLYm
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