By Aashrit Singh

This information might be helpful for prospective applicants for MAIB coming from India or anyone who is currently enrolled and is under the process of getting the DOV done.
 
Declaration Of Value or DV is a very essential and a mandatory document for any student who is going to study in Italy. The process of obtaining it is a bit of a task and requires around three months of time in total.
The DV has to be obtained in order for Italy to recognize your degree certificate (highest attained degree).
There are four steps to be followed and they are:
  1. Attestation for your degree certificate from the HRD ministry/Regional commissioner of the state to which your university belongs. For example, I graduated from Visvesvaraya Technological University (Belgaum, Karnataka) and I had to get my attestation done from the Regional Commissioner, Belgaum. The process for attestation can be found at: http://www.regional-commissioner-belgaum.gov.in/english/index.html and I had to make two trips to Belgaum and my physical presence was required, else a power of attorney could be given to any blood relative. Note: Kindly check with any agent who assists with DOV or your University before proceeding with the attestation.
  2. Getting an Apostille from the ministry of external affairs on your degree certificate. This usually happens at Delhi. You do not have to personally travel to Delhi but there are many agents who get the Apostille at a very affordable price.
  3. The next step is translation of your degree certificate after attestation and apostille into Italian Language. There are many translators all over the country and you may find plenty of them in your city. Note that both sides of your degree certificate need to be translated (the back side of your degree certificate will contain the attestation and apostille). (Steps 1 to 3 may take approximately 25-30 days).
  4. The degree certificate and the translated document has to be submitted to the nearest Italian consulate for DOV.The submission is done through VFS office. So you need to visit the nearest VFS office and submit it. This step usually takes 45-60 days and the document is handed back to you. The process of collecting it will be explained by VFS during submission.
This is written based on my experience while I applied for my DOV and the process may keep changing with changes in government rules. I strongly recommend you go through the websites of Italian Consulate and VFS or any primary source that explains the process of obtaining DOV before you initiate the process.

Also, if you feel this is time consuming and you do not have enough time for proceeding with all the steps, you could finish with step 1 which usually requires your physical presence and find an agent in your city or nearby city and hand it over to them for the rest of the process but of course with a cost attached to it. It is usually not very expensive and eases you from some travel or saves a lot of your time.

Some key points to be kept in mind:
·       You cannot proceed with step 1 until an official offer of place is issued from an Italian University
·       Make sure you do not delay in initiating the process as there is a deadline for submission of DOV at the University
·       Confirm from a primary source such as the website of VFS before you initiate the process
·       Every university/state government has a different procedure for step 1, so kindly double check before proceeding.


If you require any further help, you may reach anyone from MAIB and they will be happy to assist you.
Share on Thumblr
Buffer