The study investigated the factors that affect primary education quality in Malawi. Data from SACMEQ II on reading scores for
Malawi was regressed in ordinary least squares. A basic multilevel analysis was also conducted to account for the variation at
school level and student level. The results show that pupil gender, socio-economic status, speaking English at home, class
size had a positive impact on reading scores. Moreover, the age of the student, absenteeism, having class in the open,
teachers’ years of teaching were negatively associated with pupil reading scores. This mean that policies aimed at improving
quality should be focused not only on the school resources but also on mitigating student level challenges.