OxfordAQA Cancels IGCSE and A-Level Exams in UAE: What Students Need to Know Now

What OxfordAQA Actually Announced

OxfordAQA is the first UK exam board to formally cancel its exams in the UAE for Summer 2026. Notices went out to schools on 2 April. It covers IGCSE subjects including English as a Second Language, along with every other subject assessed by OxfordAQA at both IGCSE and International A-Level.

The exams won’t run. That’s it. Schools are now waiting on detailed instructions from OxfordAQA about how students will be graded instead.

This isn’t entirely unexpected. UAE schools have been operating on distance learning for several weeks due to ongoing regional disruptions, and exam boards have been under pressure to make decisions. OxfordAQA moved first. The others are still to follow, officially at least.

Which Students Are Affected

This specifically covers students registered for OxfordAQA qualifications. That’s different from Cambridge IGCSE, Pearson Edexcel International GCSE, or AQA GCSE. If you’re not sure which board your school uses, now is the time to find out.

OxfordAQA is a relatively smaller player in the UAE market compared to Cambridge or Pearson, but there are schools across Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi that use their qualifications. If your school offers OxfordAQA subjects alongside other curricula, you may only be partially affected depending on which specific qualifications you’re sitting.

Year 11 students (IGCSE) and Year 13 students (A-Level) are the main groups looking at this situation. Year 12s are in a different position since those exams typically aren’t high-stakes the same way, but they’ll want to understand how the disruption affects their predicted grades going forward.

This Isn’t Just OxfordAQA

Here’s the context that helps make sense of what’s happening. OxfordAQA’s announcement follows earlier cancellations for IB and CBSE students in the UAE, both of which were confirmed in the weeks leading up to this. So OxfordAQA students aren’t alone in this. They’re the latest group to face a version of the same situation.

IB students in the UAE moved to an alternative assessment process called the Non-Examination Completion Model (NECM), where grades are calculated from coursework, predicted grades, and internal assessments rather than final written exams. CBSE Grade 12 students were also moved to an alternative assessment track.

The pattern is clear. This academic year, traditional summer exams for multiple curricula are not going to happen as planned in the UAE. Every board is handling it slightly differently, but the direction is the same.

What About Pearson Edexcel and AQA?

As of 2 April 2026, neither Pearson Edexcel nor AQA has said anything publicly about their UAE exam plans. That silence is genuinely frustrating if you’re trying to plan your next few weeks.

Both boards are watching the same situation. IB cancelled. CBSE cancelled. OxfordAQA just cancelled. At some point the remaining boards have to say something. What they say is still unknown, but the pressure to communicate is real.

If you’re an Edexcel or Cambridge student, don’t act on what you’ve heard from friends or WhatsApp groups. Wait for official word through your school. That’s not me being unhelpfully cautious; it’s just that the rumor mill in situations like this is almost always wrong in ways that cause extra stress.

How Will Grades Be Awarded?

OxfordAQA hasn’t released the full alternative assessment framework yet. Schools are waiting for those details. But based on what’s happened with other boards in the same situation, here’s what typically applies.

Alternative assessments generally draw on a combination of coursework already submitted, teacher predicted grades, mock exam performance, and any internal assessments completed during the year. The exact weighting varies by board and sometimes by subject.

This is where students who’ve maintained consistent effort throughout the year have an advantage. Teachers have been tracking your work all year. Mock results matter now more than they might have if exams were going ahead normally. Coursework that was already submitted becomes more significant, not less.

If your coursework is strong and your mocks went well, this process is less scary than it sounds. If you were counting on the final exam to rescue a difficult year, that path no longer exists for OxfordAQA students in the UAE. That’s the honest reality.

What about grade boundaries and fairness?

Exam boards design alternative assessment processes to be statistically comparable to the normal examination route. They’re not going to wildly inflate or deflate grades compared to typical years. The goal is for a student who would have scored a 7 to still end up with something in that range. In practice it’s not a perfect science, and some students feel the process advantages or disadvantages them depending on their exam performance relative to their coursework. But this is where things stand.

If you have concerns about how your work has been tracked or how your predicted grade reflects your ability, talk to your subject teachers now. Not to argue, but to understand what’s informing their assessments while there’s still time for that conversation to matter.

What Should Students Actually Do Right Now?

This is the part most articles skip past. Here’s what I’d tell a student I was working with directly.

First, get clarity on your specific situation. Which subjects are affected? Are all of them OxfordAQA, or a mix? Your school can tell you this today.

Second, don’t stop studying. I know that sounds almost annoying to say given the circumstances, but it’s genuinely important. A few reasons: other exam boards haven’t cancelled yet and might not. University interviews and conditional offers still exist and you may need to demonstrate knowledge. And if any board reschedules or opens a late assessment window, you want to be ready rather than having spent three weeks doing nothing.

Third, take stock of your coursework and internal assessments. Do you know what’s been submitted and marked? Is there anything outstanding that you can still complete? Some boards allow schools to submit late coursework within a window before the alternative assessment is finalised. Your school will know whether that applies here.

Fourth, focus on subjects where you might have pending coursework or where your teacher-assessed grades feel shaky. If you’ve already got a strong internal assessment record in a subject, you don’t need to panic. If there’s a subject where you know you haven’t performed consistently, that’s where to concentrate your energy.

What Does This Mean for University Applications?

This is probably the question most Year 13 students are sitting with right now. If A-Level results are coming from an alternative assessment rather than written exams, will universities accept them?

Universities have dealt with this before. Covid-era teacher-assessed grades in 2020 and 2021 are a recent precedent. UK universities, particularly through UCAS, have experience handling non-exam results and work with boards to understand how grades were derived. Most major universities will accept OxfordAQA International A-Level grades regardless of whether they came from written exams or an alternative assessment process.

That said, individual universities may have specific policies. If you have a conditional offer from a UK university, the safest thing to do is contact that university’s admissions office directly and ask how they’ll handle grades awarded through alternative assessment for the Summer 2026 cycle. Most will already have guidance prepared. The question isn’t embarrassing to ask; admissions teams are expecting it.

For students applying to US, Canadian, or Australian universities, the situation is broadly similar. Admissions offices at international institutions are accustomed to navigating disruptions in different countries. What matters is that your grades are officially awarded by a recognised board through a process that board can stand behind.

The Honest Take

There’s no version of this that doesn’t involve some uncertainty and frustration. Students have been working towards these exams all year. Some were finally confident. Some were relying on a strong final performance to pull up a weaker internal record. Neither of those situations plays out the same way now.

What you can do is work with what you know. You know what your coursework looks like. You know how your mocks went. You know which subjects have been consistent and which haven’t. That’s actually a lot to work with.

More announcements will come. Other boards will make decisions. Keep checking official sources, stay in contact with your school, and don’t let the uncertainty become a reason to stop working.

I know the instinct when something this big gets disrupted is to wait and see. That instinct is worth fighting.

Key Takeaways

• OxfordAQA confirmed on 2 April 2026 that its IGCSE and International A-Level exams will not run in the UAE this summer
• This follows earlier cancellations for IB and CBSE students, making OxfordAQA the first UK board to announce
• Pearson Edexcel and AQA have not yet confirmed their plans for UAE GCSE and A-Level exams
• Schools are awaiting detailed guidance from OxfordAQA on how alternative assessments will work
• Grades will likely draw on coursework, mocks, and teacher assessments already on record
• University conditional offers still apply, so keeping up academic momentum matters