When the National Examination Board conducted grade 12 examinations in November, it had announced that the results will be published within a month.

However, one and half months after the examinations, the board says it needs another 10 days to publish the results.

“We couldn’t fulfill our commitment because schools sent us grades for their students unsystematically,” said Chandra Mani Poudel, board chairperson at a virtual interaction on Thursday. “We will publish the results in the next 10 days.”

The board had said that the students’ answer sheets would be graded in their respective schools unlike in the past when they were marked by examiners appointed by the board. This would speed up the process, the board had said.

The board, according to Poudel, issued a format to all schools to dispatch their students’ grades. “However, most schools completely ignored that,” he said. “We couldn’t stick to our deadline because of the negligence on the part of the schools.”

Owing to the Covid-19 pandemic the weightage of the tests was reduced by 60 percent while the duration of the exams had been shortened to one-and-a-half hours. While students took the written exam for 40 percent of their final grades, another 40 percent came from their grades in grade 11 and the remaining 20 percent from internal evaluation by their schools.

Officials say the delay in the results is mainly due to the delay in uploading marks as they are not provided as directed. They say an official who could upload 50,000 pieces of data a day in the previous years struggled to enter 10,000 this year, as schools didn’t follow directions while submitting the marks ledger.

The delay has ultimately cost students their time. Different universities and embassies have already sought applications for entrance exams for medicine and engineering degrees.

The Bangladeshi Embassy has called applications for students wanting to pursue MBBS on scholarship. Students need to submit the results of grade 12 or the A-Levels to qualify to take the entrance test by January 21. Similarly, the Indian Embassy has a January 23 deadline.

“The deadline is just a week away, however, we don’t know when the grade 12 results will be out,” said Shreedhi Neupane from Capital College and Research Centre, Koteshwor, who is currently preparing for MBBS entrance tests. “Hundreds of students like me are in a fix.” She said they will be deprived of applying for scholarships in different countries if the results are not published in a couple of days.

Students will miss the deadline set by both the embassies if the board takes 10 more days to publish the results. As many as 433,131 examinees had taken the grade 12 examinations this year.

All 4,105 higher secondary schools across the country were turned into examination centres this year owing to the threat of the pandemic.