Teacher Education verification keeps failing

[rayksyoo]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Verification Help & Guidance

Hi everyone,

Hi,

I'm a university faculty member applying for GitHub Education teacher benefits. Every attempt is rejected with the same three name-related reasons, even though my name matches the document.

Rejection message received:

Please ensure that your academic affiliation document contains your last name exactly as it appears in your GitHub billing information.
Please ensure that your academic affiliation document contains your first name exactly as it appears in your GitHub billing information.
You are unlikely to be verified until you have completed your GitHub user profile with your full name exactly as it appears in your academic affiliation document.

My document is an official English-language Certificate of Employment issued by my university's registrar, showing the full institution name, my name, my position, the employment period, and the issue date. It is digitally signed and verifiable through the university's certificate portal.

Following Korean convention, the certificate prints my surname first, separated by a comma, and my given name contains a space — for example, in the form AA, BB CCC (surname AA, given name BB CCC).

Using that example format, I have tried all of the following — each in both ALL-CAPS and Title Case — logging out and back in between attempts:

• Billing first BB CCC / last AA, profile BB CCC AA
• Billing first AA / last BB CCC, profile AA BB CCC
• Billing first AA, / last BB CCC, profile AA, BB CCC
• The full string AA, BB CCC in both billing fields

All were rejected with the identical three reasons.

• All three name checks fail simultaneously even when the names do match. Could the OCR simply be failing to read the document, rather than finding a genuine mismatch?

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you.

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[syasukawa]

Update: Since this issue remains unresolved and the GitHub Education Support form itself appears to be broken, I opened a separate bug report here:

https://github.com/orgs/community/discussions/205812

The Support form currently returns Category hh-edu-app-deny-fac is not a valid choice when attempting to escalate a Faculty application rejection.

[tamimlabs]

Yes, your hypothesis is correct. GitHub’s automated verification uses an OCR engine that often trips over non-standard punctuation (like commas), multi-part given names, and Asian naming conventions (e.g., Surname First format).

When the OCR fails to extract the text block properly, it outputs a default "Name Mismatch" error for First Name, Last Name, and Profile Name simultaneously.

Here are the workarounds that usually resolve this:

1. Remove Special Characters in Profile/Billing:
   Do not include commas or special symbols in your GitHub Public Profile Name or Billing Information. The automated system looks for direct alphanumeric character string matches.

2. Standardize Name Order in GitHub Settings:

   • GitHub Profile Name: Set as BB CCC AA (Given Name + Surname, no comma).
   • Billing First Name: BB CCC
   • Billing Last Name: AA

3. Lighting & Contrast during Camera Capture:
   If taking a photo of the document, ensure the text around your name is brightly illuminated and crisp. The OCR frequently drops characters if there is screen glare, soft focus, or low contrast.

4. Contact Education Support for Manual Review:
   If the automated OCR continuously fails, open a support ticket via GitHub Education Support. Explain that the automated OCR is misreading your university certificate due to naming convention structure.

[tamimlabs]

I think it will works

[syasukawa]

I am experiencing exactly the same issue with faculty verification.

My official academic affiliation document, GitHub billing information, and GitHub public profile all show exactly the same full name, with no abbreviations or variations.

I have also:

• confirmed that my first and last names match exactly,
• completed my GitHub public profile,
• signed out and signed back in before reapplying,
• submitted a newly issued official Certificate of Employment,
• used my device camera to capture the document as instructed.

The certificate clearly states my current faculty position and current employment status. However, the application is repeatedly rejected with the same first-name and last-name mismatch messages.

Since manual individual verification is no longer available, I am not sure what else I can change on my side.

Has anyone found a workaround for this automated name-matching issue, particularly for faculty applications?

[syasukawa]

One additional detail: I also tried to contact GitHub Education Support about this issue.

However, when I select the faculty application rejection category, the support form returns the error:

Category hh-edu-app-deny-fac is not a valid choice.

If I select “I found a technical bug” instead, I am redirected back to the GitHub Education Community.

So at the moment, I cannot find a support channel where this automated faculty verification issue can actually be reported.

[syasukawa]

One week has passed since my previous comment, and unfortunately this issue is still unresolved.

The GitHub Education Support form also continues to fail with:

Category hh-edu-app-deny-fac is not a valid choice.

I have not found any working escalation path for this Faculty verification issue.

If a GitHub Education or Community team member sees this, could you please advise how Faculty applicants should escalate this type of automated verification failure?