Posted on July 21, 2011 by Phillip Lee

The Coalition Government is working to improve social mobility and to close the gap between the poorest and the wealthiest. In this process, it is essential that support is effectively targeted to help students from low-income families to stay in education. This is not the case with the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA). In fact, 643,000 young people, almost half of all 16-18 year-olds in full-time education, currently receive EMA. Research commissioned by the Labour Government and produced by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found that only 12 per cent of young people overall receiving an EMA believe that they would not have participated in the courses they are doing if they had not received an EMA. In other words, 9 out of 10 recipients of EMA would stay in education without it and are therefore being paid to do something they would have done anyway.

In order to ensure that support is provided to those who face genuine financial barriers to participation in education, the Coalition Government is replacing the EMA with a better support scheme. The new scheme includes an increase in educational places for 16 to 19 year old students and a pledge to raise the compulsory participation age to 18 by the end of this Parliament. EMA was introduced as an ‘incentive’ to stay in education. As the participation age is rising, and the Coalition Government is providing additional funds to achieve this, there is less need for such an incentive.

In addition, we will ensure that there is funding available to cover transport for young people in need. Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide transport for young people who cannot afford to get to their place of learning. This duty will remain despite the withdrawal of EMA. Also, the rules for Discretionary Learner Support Funds will be changed so that this can be used to help students with transport costs.

Some students do need extra support in order to stay in education, which is why we will target extra funds at those who need it most. EMA does not provide targeted support for those most in need. We will replace it with a system that does.

(Published in The Wokingham Times on the 07th of February 2011)