Pune: At least 21,000 students across the state are unable to submit Class XII board exam forms because their names are missing in the system.Oct 31 is the last date to complete the process.Secondary education director Mahesh Palkar said a meeting was held between govt and education department officials to discuss the issue. A positive decision is expected soon to help the affected students.According to education department officials, the mismatch occurred because these students were admitted to Class XI through offline processes, which are not permitted in Maharashtra, where admissions must be conducted online to track students.The online system allows schools to retrieve students’ permanent registration numbers from the UDISE+ portal, a facility unavailable through offline admissions. Palkar added that deputy directors in each division have been asked to take appropriate action against schools that allowed offline admissions. “The schools know that they are not supposed to admit any student in an offline manner in Std XI and yet they have admitted around 21,000 students in this manner. Appropriate action needs to be taken against them so that this practice is not repeated,” said Palkar.School education minister Dada Bhuse said, “Many institutes have accepted offline admissions. An inquiry will be conducted into this matter, and appropriate action will be taken against any institutes found to have violated the rules. A decision will be made in the best interests of the students.”An official from the education department said there are nearly 4,000 such names from the Pune division. “Pune division consists of three districts — Pune, Ahilyanagar and Solapur. In approximately 120 colleges, we found 4,000 students who were not admitted to Std XI last year through the centralised online admission process. When these students tried to fill up their Std XII exam forms, they found their data is not visible. Their names will eventually be added but the schools will face the music,” said the official.The official further added that while Pune division has sent notices to all such erring schools levying a fine of Rs 3,000 per student, a note by the secondary education department states that the penalty should be a fine of Rs 5,000 per student.As per the state board notification, the Std XII exam forms became live from Aug 14, 2026, and the students can fill up the forms with the regular fee till Oct 31. In the second phase, students can fill up the exam forms with a late fee between Nov 1 and Nov 15 and with an additional late fee, which is Rs 50 per student per day, between Nov 16 and Nov 30.
