We receive many enquiries about the translation of academic document. Mainly translations from English to French, translations from English to German and translations from English to Italian. Translations of these language pairs are becoming more and more common as more students are opting to study in France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany.
So, once you receive your degree and transcript, the next question you would ask yourself is normally, how do I go about translating and legalizing my documents. We decided to write this post to give you some answers to this question.
In order for the Embassy of your country of destination to endorse your degree and transcript, the documents submitted to them must be legalized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Wisma Putra) here in Malaysia. This applies to all students, local or foreign. There is a process that must be followed in order to obtain the legalization. Let’s look at that in detail.
Step 1:
The first thing that needs to be done is to check with the university that you are applying to if they need translated copies of your academic documents. Most universities in Malaysia will issue your Degrees and Transcripts in English, however there may be some words in Malay especially for compulsory subjects for MQA (Malaysian Qualifications Agency). Once you get confirmation from your University that your documents need to be translated, you will then need to check with the Embassy here in Malaysia as to their requirements for translation. Most Embassies do not have fixed requirements; however, a handful of embassies have their own panel translators and you will need to use the services of these translators or translation agencies in order for the documents to be approved by the Embassy.
Step 2:
After you have confirmed the requirements with the Embassy, you will need to get your original documents legalized by the Ministry of Education (Higher Education) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You will need to go to the Ministry of Higher Education first. You will need to submit the following documents in order to obtain the legalization from the Ministry of Education:
1. All original documents (degree certificate and transcripts);
2. Letter of completion of studies from your university;
3. Copy of passport and ALL student visas (for foreign nationals only).
Once the MOHE has legalized your documents, you will need to go to Wisma Putra (MOFA) to get them legalized again. This whole process can take between 3 to 5 hours to complete. We recommend that you get your documents legalized before submitting them for translation because certain embassies will require that the stamps from the 2 different ministries be translated as well.
"Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture." – Anthony Burgess, novelist
Step 3:
The next step will be to get your documents translated. One very important thing that you must remember is that these translations must be accepted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As such, please ensure that the translator or translation agency that you engage is certified by either the Persatuan Penterjemah Malaysia or the Institut Terjemahan dan Buku Malaysia. You can contact the translation bodies mentioned above and they will direct you to the relevant translators/agencies.
Step 4:
The last step is to get your translated documents legalized by Wisma Putra (MOFA). The process will be similar to the steps taken at Wisma Putra in Step 2 above.
Once this is complete, your documents are now ready to be submitted to the relevant Embassies for use outside of Malaysia.
We hope that this article will be useful to you. If you need any further information, or if you are not in the country and need your documents translated and legalized, please contact us. We offer a full range of legalization and certification services as well.
We hope that this article will be useful to you. If you need any further information, or if you are not in the country and need your documents translated and legalized, please Contact Us. We offer a full range of legalization and certification services as well.
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