If you are a University of Mumbai student with a surname such as ‘More’, ‘Pant’ or ‘Kale’, you may be in for a surprise when you receive your degree certificate.
The Devanagari script on a degree certificate issued by the University of Mumbai (MU) to a Bachelor of Mass Media (BMM) graduate Nikita Kite from Ramnarain Ruia College at Matunga bears the literal Marathi translation of her surname, instead of the actual surname. While the English script on the certificate correctly displays the student’s surname as Kite (pronounced kee-tay), the Devanagari script has ‘Patang’ (kite in Marathi) in its place.
According to the university, the reason for the peculiar error is the software that generates degree certificates. “The software identifies the words which find an entry in the dictionary and translates them into Marathi,” said Deepak Wasave, the officiating controller of the examination.
Instead of resolving the bug in the software, the university has a rather menial way of overcoming the problem. “We manually verify every certificate before issuing it, but somehow missed the error in this case,” said Wasave.
Despite the university’s insistence to the contrary, it’s likely that there have been more such mishaps. Suhas Pednekar, principal of Ramnarain Ruia College, said two of its graduating students have found errors in their degree certificates. “The only error is that their names have been misspelt, changing the meaning of their names altogether. We have informed the university and are hoping to get fresh copies of the certificates soon,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Despite the university’s insistence to the contrary, it’s likely that there have been more such mishaps. Suhas Pednekar, principal of Ramnarain Ruia College, said two of its graduating students have found errors in their degree certificates. “The only error is that their names have been misspelt, changing the meaning of their names altogether. We have informed the university and are hoping to get fresh copies of the certificates soon,” he said.
{{/usCountry}}Also, the university said that it has issued a fresh certificate to Kite.
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