Hyderabad: The heightening Telangana tension is adversely affecting students preparing for central board examinations, including Central Board of Secondary Education, Indian Certificate of Secondary Education and Indian School Certificate.

While the central board schools are mostly immune to tensions in the state, the prolonged agitation which is expected to spill over into the new year is keeping the CBSE and ICSE schools on tenterhooks as they have been instructed by their respective boards to complete lessons by January at any cost.

 While the officials of the southern regional office of CBSE, Chennai, have shot off instructions to city schools to complete lessons at least by the end of January, many ICSE schools have taken steps to hold extra classes even during their winter vacation, under board instructions.

What scares the school managements the most is the unlikelihood of postponement of examinations under any circumstances. “While students of the state board can expect a change in their examination schedule in case of any disturbance, for CBSE students there will not be any uncertainty as the board exams are held across the country based on the same timetable. With the tension expecting to last even in the month of January, the regional office has informed the schools to finish lessons soon by taking extra classes if necessary,” said N Nagaraju, regional officer, CBSE, Chennai. The CBSE examinations are scheduled for March and the pre-finals are scheduled for January.

 Principals of schools said that the students are already complaining about the classes they missed and unfinished lessons. “The school was closed for at least five to six days due to the unrest. Parents and students are worried that the situation may worsen in January and are asking for special classes,” said a teacher from KV 2, Langar House.

Meanwhile, B Rama Devi, principal of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, said that more than class X students, those from lower classes would be affected as most of their lessons are yet to be finished. “If the tension persists in January, the academic year will go for a toss and we will have to discuss the problem with the CBSE board authorities to sort it out,” Rama Devi said.

Some of the ICSE schools in the city had held extra classes even during the Christmas vacation. “We had instructions to hold classes during the vacation to make up for loss. Since some of the examinations have been postponed to January the school is bound to lose more days of the academic calender,” an official from an ICSE school said. School authorities said that they had written to the ICSE board to review the situation in the state before finalising the exam timetable.