New Delhi: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Thursday canceled the Class 10 board exams in several West Asian countries due to the war between Iran, the US and Israel. 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. 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.
“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 a circular dated March 5, which listed 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.
“We advise all Class XII students to stay in close touch with their schools and follow official announcements carefully,” Bhardwaj said.
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.
