CBSE eases APAAR ID mandate for board exams 2026 over lack of parental consent, technical issues

In a partial relaxation to APAAR ID mandate, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has allowed schools to submit the List of Candidates (LoC) for board exams 2026 without the ID, by making ‘refused’ or ‘not generated’ entries.

The relaxation came after the central board received representations from various schools across different states citing technical and administrative challenges in generating APAAR IDs for students such as difficulty in integration, mismatch in data, delay in correction or updating process, and lack of parental consent.

The schools have been directed to take the following steps:

• In case APAAR IDs are not being generated owing to lack of consent of parents, schools have to maintain a copy of the denial of consent by parents and put ‘refused’ in the entry against APAAR in the LOC.
• In case APAAR IDs are not being generated owing to other reasons, entry against APAAR has to be made as "NOGEN"
• In all other cases, APAAR ID shall be indicated.

With these instructions, CBSE said that it expects an error-free LOC submission. Starting from the CBSE board exams 2026, the board has decided to APAAR IDs of students with their records mandatory.

Additionally, the board has also reiterated the important dates of all the activities related to the board exams 2026. The board has started the registrations of regular and private candidates while the submission of List of Candidates (LoC) will end on October 3 with a late fee.

CBSE Board Exams 2026: Key dates

The schedule of all the activities with regard to CBSE Class 10, 12 board exams 2026 is given below.

“Each of the activities will end at 11:59 pm of the scheduled date and the late fee will be applicable from the next schedule,” the board said and added, “Thus, schools are requested to strictly adhere to the time lines for all activities so as to avoid paying late fee and creating any undue last-minute pressure.”