The Commonwealth Government has allocated significant funding to the NSW Department of Education and Training to implement the National Partnership Program. One hundred and fifty schools across the state and from all three education sectors have been selected to participate in the program which aims to raise the standard of literacy or numeracy teaching in schools. Schools, supported by their regional office, are required to identify a focus area (literacy or numeracy) using current school data and then choose a whole school/classroom program as well as an individual intervention to help improve the traget focus. The MULTILIT Reading Tutor Program (Revised) was selected as one of the research-based programs on offer for this Partnership Program. MULTILIT has worked with schools since its inception to provide an excellent teaching tool based on quality research so we are extremely excited about the possibility of introducing the MULTILIT Reading Tutor Program to an even wider audience. We hope that many hundreds of low-progress readers will be able to access quality instruction through this initiative and we are very grateful for the opportunity to take part. More information on the National Partnerships can be found at www.det.nsw.edu.au.

In July 2009, the report of the Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision was released in relation to Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage (OID). Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage 2009 is the fourth report in a series commissioned by heads of Australian governments in 2002 (COAG) to provide regular reporting against key indicators of Indigenous disadvantage.

In December 2007 and March 2008 COAG committed to six ambitious targets to close the gap in Indigenous disadvantage:

• closing the life expectancy gap within a generation;
• halving the gap in the mortality rate for Indigenous Children under five within a decade;
• ensuring all Indigenous four year olds in remote communities have access to quality early childhood programs within five years;
• halving the gap in reading, writing and numeracy achievements for children within a decade;
• halving the gap in Indigenous students in Year 12 attainment rates or equivalent attainment by 2020;
• halving the gap in employment outcomes within a decade.

In its report in relation to the target for Reading Writing and Numeracy, the Steering Committee detailed four programs in section 4.34 'Things that work' - early literacy engagement. The first of the programs outlined was MULTILIT, and the second was MINILIT (also a MULTILIT program). The other two programs were the National Accelerated Literacy Program (NALP), an elaborated version of the Scaffolding Literacy Program, used extensively in the Northern Territory, and a Tasmanian program called Finding Your Pathway into School and Beyond. The text from the report in relation to MULTILIT programs is reproduced below: