E-Paper
CBSE cancels Class 12 board exams in the West Asia amid US-Iran war
CBSE had already announced the cancellation of all Class 10 Board exams in the region and had rescheduled the Class 12 exams scheduled till March 16.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Sunday cancelled remaining Class 12 board examinations, including papers earlier postponed in several West Asian countries amid the ongoing Iran–US–Israel conflict.
The board will later notify the mode of result declaration for thousands of affected Class 12 students studying in over 150 CBSE-affiliated schools across Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In its latest and sixth circular since March 1, the board announced that after reviewing the feasibility of conducting the examinations and considering “inputs obtained and requests received from schools and authorities of the affected countries,” it decided to cancel all Class 12 examinations scheduled from March 16 to April 10, 2026, for students in Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
In the circular dated March 15, the board also clarified that examinations postponed earlier “shall also stand cancelled.”
“The mode of declaration of results for Class 12 candidates in these countries will be notified separately in due course,” CBSE exam controller Sanyam Bhardwaj said in the latest circular, which lists the Indian ambassadors to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iran, as well as the Consul General of India in Dubai, among those copied for information and necessary action.
As per the original schedule, the board conducted several Class 12 board examinations between February 17 and February 28 before postponing papers in West Asia due to the prevailing situation in the region.
During this period, the board successfully held examinations for subjects such as physical education, physics, accountancy, geography and chemistry, among others, before issuing its first circular on March 1 deferring subsequent papers for students in Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Earlier, the board had first postponed multiple papers before cancelling all remaining Class 10 examinations for students in the affected countries on March 5.
The latest decision effectively ends the 2026 board examination cycle for both Class 10 and Class 12 candidates in CBSE-affiliated schools across Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
The CBSE conducts the Class 10 and 12 board exams annually in India and at select overseas centres where its affiliated schools operate. This decision affects thousands of Indian students studying in CBSE-affiliated schools across the Gulf region, with Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyadh among the key examination hubs.
In recent years, the CBSE altered schedules mainly during extraordinary circumstances — most notably in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when several Class 10 and 12 examinations in India and abroad were postponed or cancelled. In isolated cases, the board has also deferred exams in specific centres due to extreme weather, local emergencies or security-related concerns, while maintaining the broader national timetable.
The CBSE board examinations for Classes 10 and 12 began on February 18 this year. While the Class 10 examinations have since concluded, the Class 12 exams are still underway. In all, over 4.37 million students — including about 2.51 million Class 10 students and 1.86 million Class 12 students — registered for the CBSE board examinations this year.
CBSE officials did not respond to HT queries till the filing of this report.
