The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) on Monday brought out an assessment criteria for overseas private students of Class 12 in Gulf countries to ensure students are not disadvantaged in their academic pursuits due to cancellation of examinations midstream due to the extraordinary war-like situation in West Asia this year.
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Devising a formula based on “weighted average” of the student’s performance in Class 10 and last attempted Class 12 examination, the CBSE policy of June 21 was produced before the Supreme Court hearing a plea filed by an overseas private student. The court on June 12 granted CBSE time to come out with a policy that will cater to even other similarly-placed students.
Solicitor general Tushar Mehta tabled the CBSE notification before a bench of justices SVN Bhatti and Vipul M Pancholi following which the petition was closed as his marks, calculated based on the new arrived formula, had already been communicated to him.
“We have come out with new policy guidelines on June 21. As per this policy, we have calculated the marks of the candidate and emailed it to him. The marks have increased compared to the previous year marks he scored,” Mehta told the court.
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The petitioner candidate was marked as per the scores he received in the physics and chemistry examinations that he wrote just prior to the cancellation of his three subjects – mathematics, English and computer science.
As per the formula devised by CBSE, for private candidates in Gulf countries whose examinations were cancelled, 40% of theory marks scored in the Class 10 board examination and 60% of theory marks scored by the student in the Class 12 board examination last attempted will be taken into account.
To calculate the Class 10 theory marks, the formula said that marks shall be computed as the average of best three performing subjects out of the five main subjects. “This average shall be uniformly awarded subject to allotment of maximum marks to a subject to all Class 12 subjects whose examinations could not be conducted,” the notification said.
The notification issued by Controller of Examinations Sanyam Bharadwaj said, “This policy ensures that the students in the affected regions are not disadvantaged in their future academic and career pursuits.”
The CBSE on March 27 notified a policy for the regular candidates of Class 12 across the seven countries of Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Announcing the new policy for private overseas candidates affected by cancellation of examinations in the Gulf countries, the CBSE also considered special cases by providing that where the student did not pass the Class 10 from CBSE, performance shall be calculated based on the result of the Board from which Class 10 was taken.
The policy kept it open for such private candidates, dissatisfied with the new assessment scheme, to take part in a fresh set of examinations in the subjects whose examinations could not be conducted.
The only rider being, “If such an opportunity is afforded and availed of, the marks obtained in these examinations shall be final,” the CBSE policy said.
Mehta informed the court that the CBSE took time to formulate this policy as in the case of private candidates, they had no school to supply internal assessment records such as quarterly, half-yearly and pre-board examination marks, which applied in case of regular students.
Taking the policy on record, the top court bench closed the petition.
The petitioner’s lawyer Raj Kishor Chaudhary urged the court to direct him access to the subject papers that he attended. However, the bench refused to pass any other direction as the petition was limited to the declaration of results only.
The court was hearing a petition filed by one Pransu Jigarkumar Patel, who enrolled as a private candidate in the 2026 Class 12 improvement examination from Al Jubail in Saudi Arabia. The delay in announcement of Class 12 results impacted his higher education prospects as he had applied for admission to the B.Tech (computer science and AI) programme at Dhirubhai Ambani University.`
