E-Paper
Delhi govt withdraws order barring Class 10 board exam on R3 paper failure
The issue arose from a discrepancy between two orders by the Delhi Education Department on August 17 and by the CBSE on July 10
The Delhi government’s education department on Tuesday withdrew an order that barred Class 10 students from appearing for the board examinations unless they passed the third-language (R3) paper they opted for in Class 9 under Central Board of Secondary Education’s (CBSE) three-language policy.
In a correction notice issued late Tuesday, the Delhi government’s examination branch clarified that CBSE’s order that requires students to pass R3 as part of the school’s internal assessment to receive the board’s passing certificate will prevail.
“The order dated August 17, 2026 para no. 3.5 is withdrawn and circular dated July 10 issued by CBSE shall prevail,” said the department in a correction notice dated August 18 signed by deputy director of education (exam) Parvinder Kumar.
The issue arose from a discrepancy between two orders—one issued by the Delhi Education Department on August 17 and an earlier directive issued by the CBSE on July 10.
The department’s eight-page order said that Class 9 students who failed the school-based internal assessment in the third language during the academic year would still be promoted to Class 10 under the promotion policy. However, it said they would not be “eligible” to appear for the Class 10 board examination unless they cleared the R3 paper.
In contrast, the CBSE’s July 10 order said that the Secondary School Examination Pass Certificate would be awarded to students only after they cleared the R3 requirement while studying in Class 10. The CBSE order, however, did not state that students would be barred from appearing for the board examination if they had not cleared R3.
The August 17 order titled amendment/addition in examination procedure & promotion policy for class 9 in 2026-27, signed by directorate of education director Veditha Reddy and additional director (examinations) Rita Sharma, was addressed to the heads of all government, government-aided and recognised unaided schools in Delhi. “No student shall be eligible to appear in the class X board examination at the end of class X unless he/she has qualified class 9 third language (R3),” the order said.
The three-language policy was introduced by the CBSE in May this year under National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023. The policy which came into effect since July 1 made it compulsory for class 9 and 10 students to study three languages out of which at least two of these must be Indian. CBSE has clarified that R3 will be assessed entirely through school-based internal evaluation, with no separate Class 10 board exam. While R3 marks will appear on the final CBSE certificate, students will not be barred from taking the Class 10 board examinations based on their R3 performance.
