In Malawi, at the basic education level, teacher-pupil ratios, pupil performance, dropout rates and
other educational indicators remain at unacceptable levels. This study investigated how much school,
classroom and pupil level factors influence pupil performance in mathematics, English and Chichewa
in standards 5 and 7. Tests in the three subjects were given to a random sample of sixty pupils per
school in a stratified sample of 100 urban and rural schools in one education division. In the pilot,
urban schools performed better than rural schools in mathematics and English. Pupils had problems
writing compositions in both English and Chichewa. In the study the main challenge was little time to
administer tests to all the schools. Variances in performance in the three subjects due to school and
classroom level factors will be calculated. Pupil factors will be correlated to performance. Multi level
analysis will also be done using MLwiN package.