The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) has begun rolling out “AdWise”, a national programme designed to build advertising literacy among school students, including several institutions in Kolkata. The initiative, launched by ASCI Academy, aims to reach one million students across 2,000 schools in the next 15 to 18 months. The programme trains students from Grades 3 to 8 to identify, question and evaluate advertisements, particularly in digital spaces where sponsored messages and influencer content are often not easy to recognise. ASCI said the programme has already reached more than one lakh students across seven states.
Officials said the classroom model has delivered strong results. Assessments showed a significant jump ranging from 57% to 95% in children’s ability to differentiate advertising content from regular content. Kolkata schools are part of the larger rollout following a pilot in cities like Mumbai and Delhi NCR. The sessions are being conducted by NGO partner SHARP, and include gamified material, presentation decks and parent handbooks.
ASCI CEO Manisha Kapoor said children today are exposed to marketing in more complex ways than previous generations and must be equipped to understand persuasive messaging. She added that informed students would help foster responsible media consumption in cities such as Kolkata.
