An Even Start has ceased all activity and is now closed.
An Even Start – National Tuition Program provided $700 worth (a minimum of 12 hours) of tuition in reading, writing or numeracy for eligible students. In general, eligible students were those who did not meet the 2007 national literacy or numeracy benchmarks in year 3, 5 or 7. Students who were formally exempt from benchmark testing were also eligible.
The Program provided tuition to eligible students during the 2008 school year. On 7 October 2008, the Program was extended to 15 June 2009 to maximise participation in and outcomes for, students who registered for the Program in 2008.
To 8 June 2009, 87,057 students had received tuition under the Program.
Parents/caregivers of eligible students were able to choose whether tuition was delivered through their child’s school or through a private tuition provider. The Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations worked with Government, Catholic and Independent education authorities as Program Administrators in each state and territory to support schools’ participation in the program. Curriculum Corporation provided Private Tuition Coordinator services to manage the delivery of tuition by tutors from the private tutor market.
Key features of the program included:
- personalised tuition, which met the needs of individual students but allowed for flexible delivery. This included one-to-one, small group or online tuition delivery; and
- a pre- and post-tuition assessment (of up to one hour) for each eligible student. The diagnostic pre-tuition assessment helped the tutor design an individual tuition plan for each student. The post-tuition assessment provided a measure of each child’s progress.
Program Guidelines were developed to provide information on the administration of the program for administrators, parents, schools, tutors and tuition companies.
Download:
An Even Start is currently being evaluated. Once the evaluation is complete, a summary of the findings will be made available on this website.
The Australian Government continues to work with state and territory education authorities to improve educational outcomes for all children.
On 29 November 2008, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) agreed to a number of substantial national schooling reforms. These reforms will be driven through a number of National Partnerships with State and Territory Governments. In particular, a Literacy and Numeracy National Partnership will target three priority areas:
- effective and evidence-based teaching of literacy and numeracy;
- strong school leadership and whole school engagement with literacy and numeracy; and
- monitoring student and school literacy and numeracy performance to identify where support is needed.
Funding for the Literacy and Numeracy National Partnership
The National Partnership will provide $540 million over four years from 2009.
- $500 million for states and territories to implement evidence based initiatives.
- 2009-2010: $150 million to facilitate reforms
- 2011-2012: $350 million to reward the achievement of accelerated improvement in literacy and numeracy outcomes
- $40 million under the National Partnership will fund strategic initiatives including; $13 million for the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).
More information about the National Partnerships can be found at:
Literacy and Numeracy National Partnership 
For further information about literacy and numeracy initiatives available in your State or Territory, you can contact your State/Territory Government, Catholic or Independent schools sector.
The NTMS is now closed.
The National Tuition Management System (NTMS) was an information management system that was developed for An Even Start - National Tuition Program. The NTMS was decommissioned on 30 June 2009 and is no longer available.