A report from Learning Support (full link at the end) suggests that schools are increasingly allowing themselves to be used more and more by businesses to market their products, without knowing the impact on children, says a new report.
The government-funded study found that the most common growth area was sponsorship, voucher and token schemes and overt advertising.
Sainsbury’s and Tesco both promote themselves through voucher schemes, often getting large banner advertisements erected outside schools.
Commercial organisations also offer teaching materials to schools. Even if these don’t directly promote their products, they “brand build” by introducing students, staff and parents to the company in a way which might suggest the school or teacher is endorsing the brand.
Schools might be giving mixed messages, for example on issues such as nutrition, if they allow businesses to market themselves in schools through branded materials and equipment, says the report.
Critics have also questioned whether voucher schemes really benefit schools and pupils, or whether the time and effort involved in collecting vouchers outweighs the rewards.
However there is no doubt that some of these schemes can be particularly beneficial to schools. In one approach for example companies offer free educational materials to the school in return for the school sending an email to parents telling them about the product – but including the overt message “the school does not endorse this product”. That seems to minimise the risk to pupils, while giving a genuine benefit to the school.
http://learningsupport.co.uk/newsblog/2010/01/growth-of-advertising-in-schools.html
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