Educator verification failed repeatedly despite valid academic documents

[stellalee9191-cell]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Question

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Verification Help & Guidance

Hi everyone,

Hello GitHub Education Community,

I am applying for GitHub Education benefits as an educator, but my verification has failed repeatedly.

The system always shows:

"We were unfortunately not able to verify your academic status. Please address the following issues and apply again."

I have submitted my application more than 30 times, but the result remains the same.

I am a teacher at an educational institution. My official educator document is issued in Chinese, and I suspect the automated verification system may have difficulty recognizing it.

I have tried to provide valid information and documents, but I would like to ask for advice on how to successfully complete the verification process.

Could anyone suggest what type of documentation or information is most suitable for educator verification?

Thank you very much.

[AhmadHassan-BTed]

You should stop spamming the application, as submitting it 30 times is a quick way to get your account permanently flagged by the automated abuse filters.

The OCR bot struggles to read Chinese, which is almost certainly why it keeps instantly rejecting you. Here is the official workaround for non-English documents:

1. Get it translated: Get an English translation of your educator document.
2. Try combining them: Take a clear photo of the original Chinese document and the English translation side-by-side. Combine them into one single, high-quality image file.
3. Way of upload: Use a desktop computer so you get the "upload file" option instead of being forced to use a blurry live camera.

If that combined image still gets rejected, you need manual intervention. Open a ticket at support.github.com and explain that you are an international educator whose non-English credentials are failing the automated OCR. They can manually verify your status.

[stellalee9191-cell]

Thank you for your suggestion. I have always used my laptop to submit my verification materials, but I used the camera option to take photos of my documents. However, I have never seen an “Upload file” button during the application process.

Could you please let me know where this option can be found or how to access it? I would really appreciate your guidance.

[stellalee9191-cell]

Thank you for your suggestion. May I ask whether submitting a ticket through GitHub Support (support.github.com) will lead to a manual review of my application?

If so, approximately how long does it usually take to receive a response?

[v-ember]

Hi @stellalee9191-cell ,

There are an extremely high volume of Support tickets right now, yours will be answered in the order it was received based on the amount of tickets ahead of yours. Please open only one ticket per request.