Tertiary Education and Publicity

Taking a glimpse of the advertisements in the newspaper and around the billboards and banners on the streets, one could surely find some tertiary education institutions publicise their institutions and the courses that they have to offer. Adding to that, road-shows by these educational institutions are also becoming a norm to attract students.

I, for one, felt that these publicity activities might have a negative effect on the institutions. Why is there a need for these institutions to publicise themselves if they are already the best in the industry? To me, some of the advertising techniques were simply begging students to pursue courses with them. Do students really want to be begged to study?

Frankly, after attending numerous education fairs and road-shows, I came to realise that the truly prestigious and respectable institutions are usually not represented. This is simply due to the fact that they are already getting those quality students, perhaps more than they could accommodate.

Going by this logic, then publicity of tertiary education should have negative effects to the institutions as it produces the signal to the consumers (students and parents) that the institution has yet to achieved a respectable status in the industry.

Just sharing some of my thoughts.