NEW DELHI: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Thursday canceled board exams for Class 10 including those papers which were earlier postponed in several West Asian countries in the wake of the Iran-US-Israel war. The board will later notify the method of declaring results to thousands of affected students studying in over 150 CBSE schools in Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.
For Class 12, the board postponed the March 7 exam and said it would “review the situation” on the same day before taking a call on papers due from March 9 onwards.
In its third circular this week, dated March 5, 2026, the council said that after a “critical review” of the situation in the Middle East regions, the council announced that all Class 10 exams scheduled from March 7 to March 11, 2026, have been cancelled. The exams that were earlier scheduled on March 2, 5 and 6 – which had already been postponed through previous circulars issued on March 1 and 3 – have also been cancelled.
“The method of declaring results for Class 10 students in the Middle East will be notified in due course,” said Dr Sanyam Bhardwaj, Controller of CBSE Examinations, in the latest circular listing Indian ambassadors to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iran, as well as the Consul General of India in Dubai, among those copied for necessary information and procedures.
According to the circular, the Class 12 examination scheduled for Saturday, March 7, 2026 has been postponed and “revised dates will be announced later.” CBSE also stated that it will review the situation again on March 7 and issue appropriate directions regarding exams scheduled from Monday, March 9 onwards.
“All Class XII students are advised to stay in close touch with their schools and follow official announcements carefully,” Bhardwaj said.
The decision affects thousands of Indian students studying in schools affiliated with the Central Board of Secondary Education across the Gulf region. The UAE and Saudi Arabia, in particular, host a large number of Indian expatriate families, and CBSE schools there account for a large proportion of foreign candidates who sit the board exams every year.
CBSE conducts board examinations for Classes 10 and 12 annually in India and in selected foreign centers where its affiliated schools operate. The Gulf region forms the largest overseas concentration of CBSE schools, with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyadh among the major examination centres.
The postponement and cancellation was a rare mid-session disruption of external board examinations. In recent years, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has changed schedules mainly during exceptional circumstances – most notably in 2020 and 2021 during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many Class 10 and 12 examinations in India and abroad were postponed or cancelled. In isolated cases, the Council has also postponed examinations at specific centers due to extreme weather conditions, local emergencies or security concerns, while maintaining the broader national timetable.
CBSE board exams for Classes 10 and 12 began on February 18. More than 4.37 million students, including 2.51 million Class 10 students and 1.86 million Class 12 students, are appearing for the CBSE board exams.
CBSE officials did not respond to HT’s queries.
