‘It’s a crucial year, we need to apply to universities’: Over 50,000 CBSE students in West Asia anxious as board cancels Class 12 exams

Arun is likely to write the CUET-UG and the Kerala Engineering Architecture Medical (KEAM) exam.

“It’s disheartening,” said Aleena Khan, a Class 12 Science student at ASPAM Indian International School, Sharjah, who wrote three exams before the war began, and had three to go. “We’ve been preparing for a year now, and we’ve been told constantly that this is our chance to prove ourselves after all these years of school. And now, we’re getting alerts and hearing noises. Everybody wanted to do their best in the boards, but that hope isn’t there anymore,” she said, adding that she plans on appearing for the NEET-UG, set to be held in May.

“I have friends who plan on writing the JEE (Main) in April. But they are worried about whether it will happen or not,” Khan added. The National Testing Agency has centres for these exams in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah.

Around 29,000 students had registered for the Class 10 exam, while around 23,000 were expected to appear in the Class 12 exam in the seven West Asian countries where the board exams were cancelled, going by CBSE data. In the UAE, which has the highest number of CBSE schools among these countries (110), 13,669 students had registered for the Class 10 exam, while 10,918 had registered for Class 12.

The exams began in February, which means that both Class 10 and 12 students in these countries have written some of their papers, while the rest now stand cancelled.

How will marks be calculated?

The CBSE had initially postponed exams scheduled for this month, before announcing the cancellation for Class 10 in a circular dated March 5, and Class 12 in a circular dated March 15.

A CBSE official said that another mode for declaration of results will be notified separately.

The last time that CBSE board exams saw an unprecedented large-scale disruption was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when exams were cancelled in 2020 and 2021. In 2020, when there was a similar situation of some papers being held and the others cancelled, the Board used a marking system where the average of the students’ best marks in the papers they appeared in was used to arrive at a score for the papers they could not give.

In 2021, when the board exam was not held at all, Class 12 marks were arrived at using Class 10 and 11 marks, and the unit test/mid-term/pre-board exam marks for Class 12. Unit test, mid-term, and pre-board scores were also used to arrive at the Class 10 marks in that year.

Students are awaiting a final word from the Board on what method will be used this time.

“We had written four exams, and had social science and language left. We’re hoping that they will come up with a fair method of grading for all students. Some of us were also happy about it (the cancellation), since we had scored well in the pre-boards,” Sheza Fathima, a Class 10 student at Bhavans Pearl Wisdom School, Dubai, said.

While schools in the UAE are now on spring break, classes will resume next week, but online.

Schools wait for Board to decide on scoring system

Students are tense, admits Pramod Mahajan, School Director-Principal, Sharjah Indian School. “There’s anxiety over how these results will be arrived at now, and preparation for competitive exams and university admissions around the world. They are also wondering what will happen to the competitive exams that they will have to give soon,” he explained. The school had 480 Class 10 students registered for the exam, and 350 for Class 12.

Jaemi Byju, Principal at Bhavans Pearl Wisdom School, Dubai, said 63 Class 10 students at the school had registered for the CBSE exam. “We had three pre-boards, and the children were confident. Only two exams were remaining, language and social science. Students are concerned and upset. We initially thought students might be asked to write the exam in May. But since it looks like this might not get over soon…,” she said, adding that the school was waiting for the Board to take a call on how scores will be arrived at.

“This time, the disruption is unforeseen. We’ve seen things like this during COVID…but that affected the whole world. In this case, children in India have already written their exams,” she said.

Sheeba Abraham, who handles admissions at the school and has a daughter in Class 10 in the same school, said, “My daughter wanted to write all her papers since she was quite well prepared. Students are disappointed. A return to online classes in Grade 11 will again impact students. In the UAE, we start Grade 11 in April. If students had to write their (remaining) exams in May, that would not have been fair.”