NSW Premier Mike Baird said the funding was part of the government’s 2017-2020 Literacy and Numeracy Strategy aimed at delivering extra support to students from kindergarten through to the completion of their HSC.

He said increasing the proportion of NSW students in the top two NAPLAN bands by 8 per cent was a priority for the government. 

“The skills of reading, writing and numeracy are crucial, particularly in the first few years of school,” Mr Baird said. “Everything a student achieves in school depends on a solid foundation in these skills.”

The NSW Literacy and Numeracy Strategy will focus on increasing early intervention and support for at-risk infants students in nearly 700 schools, providing evidence-based literacy and numeracy progressions that map student learning from kindergarten to Year 10.

Year 7 students starting high school will also undertake a literacy and numeracy assessment to identify those needing extra help as part of the ‘best start’ program to be introduced. The strategy will also seek to ensure graduating teachers are better prepared to teach literacy and numeracy. Education minister Adrian Piccoli said parents would also receive more information about their child’s progress with teacher’s better able to identify areas of improvement.