West Asia war: CBSE rolls out hybrid evaluation for cancelled class 12 exams
CBSE cancels remaining Class 12 exams in West Asia; results to be based on hybrid evaluation combining exam scores and school assessments.
The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Friday announced a hybrid assessment method for Class 12 students in West Asia.

This comes after the students sat for select papers between February 17 and 28, following which the CBSE on March 15 cancelled the remaining Class 12 board examinations, including papers earlier postponed in several West Asian countries amid the ongoing Iran–US–Israel conflict.
Schools have been directed to upload the marks on the CBSE portal between April 6 and April 13. “Once uploaded, the same will not be changed,” CBSE exam controller Sanyam Bhardwaj said in a notification, adding that this is to ensure timely declaration of results along with other Class 12 students.
The board will declare results of nearly 23,000 Class 12 students in over 200 CBSE-affiliated schools across seven West Asian countries using a formula-based evaluation that combines actual exam performance with school-based assessment.
Explaining the methodology for board exam results, CBSE in a notification dated March 27 said that “in subjects where examinations have been conducted, actual performance in the examination may be taken into account for declaration of results.” For the remaining subjects, marks will be derived from school assessments, including the “best of the three marks obtained in quarterly, half-yearly and pre-board examinations.”
For subjects with theory components of 80 or 70 marks, the board said schools will upload the “best of three” scores from periodic tests, while for subjects with 60, 50 or 30 marks, “performance in the final pre-board examination” will be considered.
It added that internal assessment and practical components, described as “a yearlong exercise,” will remain unchanged, as the marks have already been submitted by schools.
For subjects with lower theory weightage—60, 50 or 30 marks—the board said the final pre-board examination scores will be used. In cases where a student was absent, earlier pre-board scores may be considered.
The board clarified that internal assessment and practical components, described as “a yearlong exercise,” will remain unchanged, as “performance of the students have already been uploaded by the schools.”
Students who were able to appear in all their registered subjects will have their results declared based entirely on their written examination performance, CBSE said. Those who shifted centres to other countries, including India, will also be assessed on the basis of their actual exam scores.
The CBSE said the approach has been designed to ensure “valid, reliable, fair, and unbiased results” in view of the prevailing situation that led to the disruption of exams across the region and that the “decision of the Competent Authority of the Board shall be final and bounding,” indicating that no changes will be permitted after submission.
Between February 17 and 28, the board conducted exams of 17 academic subjects such as Physics, Accountancy, Geography and Chemistry, along with 10 skill-based subjects.
The board had cancelled exams scheduled between March 1 and April 10 across seven West Asian countries, including the UAE, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, citing “prevailing extraordinary circumstances” that made it difficult to conduct exams. It added that “any results derived through approximation methods cannot fully match those produced from an actual examination,” but would still adhere to “fairness, reliability, validity, impartiality, and transparency.”
The CBSE had, on March 18, announced a special assessment scheme for Class 10 students in West Asia, according to which marks will be calculated from the papers a student has already taken, applying averages of best-performing subjects where exams were missed.
ABOUT THE AUTHORSanjay MauryaSanjay Maurya is a Principal Correspondent with Hindustan Times, where he covers education, with a focus on school and higher education, competitive examinations, education policy and governance. Working as part of the National Bureau, he is based in New Delhi and reports on the Ministry of Education and covers various statutory bodies like UGC, AICTE and NCTE and autonomous bodies like CBSE and NCERT. His reporting also tracks the implementation of key government reforms and policies from school education to higher education including in IITs, NITs, IIMs, central and state universities, and their impact on students and educational institutions. His reporting on the irregularities and rushed implementation of CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for evaluation of Class 12 board exams 2026, triggered administrative action, leading to the transfer of the board's two senior-most officials and the constitution of a committee to probe alleged irregularities in procurement process of the system. He joined Hindustan Times in December 2024. Prior to that, he had a three-year stint at Careers360, where he reported on school and higher education, entrance examinations, admissions, rankings and various education policies involving universities and professional education bodies. Over the years, Maurya has reported extensively on major developments in India's education sector, including the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, reforms in the National Testing Agency (NTA) following the NEET-UG 2024 controversy, changes in school education, higher education regulation, and the evolution of entrance examinations such as NEET, JEE and CUET. He regularly produces data-driven and explanatory stories based on government documents, parliamentary proceedings, court records and official data. His focus remains on helping readers understand how education policies and institutional decisions affect millions of students, teachers and educational institutions across the country.Read More

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