In August 1994, the Reverend Bill Crews approached Professor Kevin Wheldall, Director of Macquarie University Special Education Centre (MUSEC), in the hope that "we could work together to give some kids a more hopeful start in life". This led to the idea for an educational program for young people at risk of becoming alienated from their schools since the education of students with severe learning difficulties had been a focus for research and program development at Macquarie University Special Education Centre for many years.

It was decided to establish an academic skills study centre, within the remit of the Exodus Foundation. The aim was to help these students to progress to, at least, functional literacy. This led to the establishment of the Schoolwise Project, so named because it had the aim of providing disaffected students with the opportunity of graduating from being streetwise to becoming schoolwise (Wheldall, Beaman, & Purnell, 1999). Pastoral support to these students, was provided by the Exodus Foundation with MUSEC providing, in effect, a variant of the MULTILIT Program.

The gains in reading skills recorded as a result of the program have been consistently excellent for the past 12 years.

During the year 2008, for example, 67 students from Years 5 and 6 who were, on average, three years behind in reading, completed the Schoolwise Program. All students completed two terms of instruction (mornings only). After only 18 weeks of instruction, these students made average gains of 20 months in reading accuracy, 16 months in reading comprehension, 20 months in single word reading, 22 months in spelling, 30 months on a non-word test of reading and could read 46% more words correctly per minute.

The results of the students completing the course have astonished even the project directors, Professor Kevin Wheldall and Dr Robyn Beamnan. "We had become almost a little complacent about the consistency of the impressive gains over the years," said Dr Beaman. "But we were astounded by the outstanding gains from this latest group of Schoolwise students."

All students are assessed on a battery of tests of reading and related skills at the beginning and then again, two terms (about five months) later, at the end of the program. Older low-progress readers like these would typically make only about two months' progress in two terms in their regular classes; many have stopped making any progress at all.

These excellent results mean that these students are going to be able to make far more sense of what they are asked to read in school, and thus be more capable of benefiting from their regular schooling.

The Exodus Foundation now has a network of these Tutorial Centres from its beginnings in Ashfield, to Redfern, Gladstone and now even in Darwin teaching over 250 students each year with MULTILIT and MINILIT (Meeting Initial Needs In Literacy) Programs.

Follow-up surveys have revealed that 3 years after completing the program, 90% of students remained in the mainstream schooling system. 56% of students planned to undertake further study at TAFE after leaving school, while 33% indicate they intended going to University. Indeed, a number of former students have graduated university.

For more information on The Exodus Foundation, go to www.exodusfoundation.net