Plan around the festival rather than requesting time off for it. Most institutions will not treat a foreseeable religious or cultural observance as grounds for an extension, but many will accommodate it if you ask in advance through the right process rather than afterwards.
The clash is structural, not personal
Diwali usually falls in the UK and North American autumn term, close to midterms and semester-one coursework. Lunar New Year usually falls near the start of the northern winter or spring term, and in Australia it lands close to the beginning of first semester. Eid moves through the calendar each year and periodically coincides with examinations.
For international students in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, these dates carry obligations that domestic classmates do not have: family expectations across time zones, travel, hosting, and calls at hours that do not respect a revision schedule. The clash is a structural feature of studying abroad, and it recurs. It is worth planning for once rather than improvising each year.
What institutions will and will not accommodate
Most universities in these four countries distinguish between circumstances that were foreseeable and those that were not. Illness is unforeseeable. A festival with a known date is foreseeable, which means it usually does not meet the threshold for mitigating circumstances, special consideration or academic consideration after the fact.
That is not the same as saying institutions are unwilling to accommodate it. Many have explicit provisions for religious observance, and many examination offices will avoid scheduling against major observances if asked early enough. The distinction is between a request made in advance through the correct channel and a request made afterwards as an excuse. The first is often granted; the second usually is not, because the date was knowable.
Find your institution's policy on religious observance specifically, rather than assuming the general mitigating circumstances process covers it. They are frequently separate, and the observance policy is usually the more generous of the two.
Ask early, and ask the right person
Where an assessment falls directly on an observance, raise it as soon as the assessment schedule is published. The relevant person is normally the module or unit convenor for coursework and the examinations office for scheduled examinations, not your personal tutor, and the request should be specific: name the date, name the assessment, and state what you are asking for.
Requests of this kind are far more likely to succeed when they arrive weeks in advance, because at that point the accommodation is administrative. The same request in the final week is asking someone to undo work already done. Our extension request template covers how to phrase this so it is easy to grant, and what to do when you are going to miss a deadline covers the position if the date is already close.
Protecting both commitments
The practical approach is to treat the festival as a fixed obligation in your plan rather than as time you will find. Once it is fixed, the work moves around it.
- Put the dates in your academic calendar at the start of the year, not the week before.
- Move deliverables forward rather than back — finishing early is available, finishing late usually is not.
- Front-load anything requiring other people: supervisor feedback, library access, group coordination.
- Protect the days themselves. Working badly through a festival tends to damage both the work and the occasion.
- If travel is involved, count the travel days as lost working time, because they are.
The wider point about time zones
Family obligations do not only occupy the festival days. For many international students the surrounding weeks bring calls at difficult hours and an expectation of availability that is invisible to a supervisor. That cost is real and it is worth naming in your own planning even where it is not something you would raise with your institution.
The students who handle this well are generally the ones who decided in advance which weeks would be low-output and planned accordingly, rather than the ones who intended to work normally and then did not. Our guides for international students in the UK, Canada and Australia cover the wider adjustment to each system.
Frequently asked questions
Can I get an extension because of a religious festival?
Usually not through the mitigating circumstances route, because those processes generally cover unforeseeable events and a festival has a known date. Many institutions do have a separate religious observance policy that is more generous, and requests made in advance through that channel are often accommodated where after-the-fact requests are not.
Who should I contact about an assessment falling on an observance?
The module or unit convenor for coursework, and the examinations office for scheduled examinations. Contact them as soon as the assessment schedule is published, naming the date, the assessment and what you are asking for, because early accommodation is administrative while a late request asks someone to undo work already done.
How do I plan around a festival that falls near exams?
Treat the dates as a fixed obligation and move deliverables forward rather than back, since finishing early is available and finishing late generally is not. Front-load anything needing other people, and count travel days as lost working time rather than as study time.
Do universities schedule around major festivals?
Some do where they can, particularly for major observances, but practice varies by institution and none can avoid every clash across a diverse student body. Checking your institution’s religious observance policy at the start of the year is more reliable than assuming the examination timetable will accommodate the date.
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