But the parent action group who campaigned against the closure of the original centre said there were holes in the new model and questioned whether it would be properly funded.

The government announced it would replace the Dalwood Assessment Centre and Palm Avenue School with the NSW Centre of Effective Reading, which would offer assessment and intervention services at three locations including one at Dubbo.

Altogether there will be $2.6 million for the three new locations, but it could not be confirmed yesterday how much would go to Dubbo.

The centre would have a speech pathologist, a psychologist, a special education teacher and an Aboriginal community liaison officer.

Education Minister Verity Firth said the restructure would bring services closer to rural and regional families but the residential service would remain in Sydney.

The new model would help more than double the number of students compared to the previous model, she said.

“The new model is an expanded service which will provide earlier intervention, shorter waiting times and assist around 300 students a year with learning difficulties,” a spokeswoman for Ms Firth said.

“One of the key factors in improving literacy and numeracy is early intervention and that’s what this new model provides.”

Dalwood Parent Action Group founder Michelle Bolte said the plan “looks great” at the outset but there were a lot of “holes”.

Ms Bolte said rezoning meant “people who used to be able to access the service may not be able to”, there was minimal funding for support for kids with learning difficulties at their own school, and recommendations made by parents that children could stay at the residential service for both one week and one month stays had been ignored.

“My fear is that this needs to be well co-ordinated, well-funded, if it’s not it could be deemed a failure and it can close,” she said.

“I want to be sure that there are no faults in this service and at the moment reading this I think there are things that need to be answered.”