In a shocking a tale, candidates sitting for the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examinations, today, have had a rude awakening when they discovered that the Geography paper does not have map illustrations despite containing questions that refer the candidates to a map.

This has forced authorities to advise the students to skip a map reading question for Geography Paper 1 because of the problem in question.

Maneb spokesperson, Angella Kashitigu has confirmed this, saying the problem has been encountered in all examination centres.

Kashitigu adds that assessment will exclude the skipped question.

"This is an anomaly and we can respond later about it but we have advised all examination centres to skip the question," she says.

A supervisor at one of the examination centres in Mzimba confirmed this to Nyasatimes candidates were shocked to learn about the development when they were handed the papers around 8 am.

"We have been told that the anomaly is nationwide," the supervisor said.

According to the supervisor, who asked not to be mentioned, the map reading section normally carries 34 marks.