The National Accelerated Literacy Program in the Northern Territory 2004-08

Implementations and outcomes: Final evaluation report

• Gary Robinson, and others
• School for Social and Policy Research

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14 July 2010From 2004 - 2008, a team based at the School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University evaluated the implementation of the National Accelerated Program in the Northern Territory, one of the key Commonwealth-territory initiatives to improve Indigenous literacy outcomes. The team conducted an exhaustive program of classroom observations and a survey of Accelerated Literacy teachers, coordinators and principals on program implementation, training and support, along with a detailed statistical analysis of literacy outcomes for the whole group of participating students. NALP was an ambitious program to implement the Accelerated Literacy teaching approach in 100 NT schools. It entailed significant effort to redevelop teaching practices through provision of training, in-school support by expert coordinators and an extensive range of materials and resources to support teaching. The evaluation found that:

• the implementation program saw significant progress in rolling out training and support to schools, but by 2008, had left many teachers with insufficient exposure to the training program
• participation in training and hours of in-school support provided were insufficient to achieve high standards of AL teaching in the classroom, with many teachers showing a lack of mastery of advanced AL teaching practices
• the level of in-school support provided to AL teachers was significantly lower in very remote schools
• there was evidence of accelerated learning among some groups of Indigenous students from middle primary to high school ages, concentrated in urban centres
• there were few signs of acceleration among students with low initial reading ages, in particular Indigenous students in very remote communities and with languages other than English spoken at home
• the gap in reading outcomes was already evident in the early years and continued to grow, and was clearly concentrated among very remote Indigenous students.

The conclusions of the evaluation were that continuing investment in NALP as a large scale program would be justified if improvements of the strategy for early childhood and remote Indigenous communities and continuing research to test its effectiveness were undertaken. However, policy settings and funding opportunities have changed, with the result that a significant program of work has stalled, in effect half-implemented and its potential to improve outcomes not fully investigated. Continuing publication on learning's from NALP is under way.

The evaluation team was led by Associate Professor Gary Robinson, now at the Menzies School of Health Research, with Professor Judith Rivalland, Edith Cowan University, Associate Professor Tess Lea, Dr Bill Tyler, Dr Perry Morrison, Ms Claire Bartlett, assisted by Mr Bruce Dunne, of the NT Department of Education and Training and advised by Professor William Louden at UWA.

The report has two volumes: findings, discussion and recommendations are presented in Volume 1; while methodology and supplementary material are documented in Volume 2.