MONTREAL—The sovereigntist Parti Québécois government, which came to power in at the beginning of the 2012-13 school year, has received a failing grade from its first crop of high school graduates.

The embarrassing fail for a party that has promised to defend and promote the French language comes not over tuition fees or financial aid, but basic grammar. And the fault has been recorded — perhaps even framed — by about 130,000 teenagers who would have noticed the glaring error on their diplomas if they had been paying attention in class.

The mistake was made in the standard introductory line of all certificates: “We, the undersigned, attest . . . .”

In this case, the undersigned are Quebec Education Minister Marie Malavoy and her deputy minister, Bernard Matte.

In French, the word “undersigned” must be modified to indicate whether those granting the diplomas are male or female. About nine months ago, according to the Journal de Montreal, Malavoy’s female deputy minister was replaced by a man, and the word, “undersigned” should have taken the male plural version of the word.

But the change wasn’t made, resulting in complaints from a number of students, among them twins Gaëlle and Andréanne Graton, of Laval, who told the newspaper they would have lost marks in class had they committed such a simple mistake.

“It’s so simple. It’s stupid. We learn this in secondary school,” said Andréanne.

A government official chalked up the error to a clerical oversight, but not one that the education ministry is rushing to correct. The printing costs worked out to $225,000, so the government won’t reprint the diplomas en masse, but will provide a corrected copy to any student who requests one.

Read more about: