Education Maintenance Allowance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is a financial scheme applicable to all students and those undertaking unpaid work-based learning in the United Kingdom aged between sixteen and eighteen (nineteen in exceptional circumstances). This applies to those doing, or applying to do, at least 12 hours of guided learning on further education courses in school sixth forms, sixth form colleges and Further Education colleges. This includes a wide range of courses up to and including level 3, such as A-levels, GCSEs, GNVQs, NVQs and other vocational qualifications. Any missed lessons except for extrenuating circumstances voids payment for that week. As of 2006[1], the weekly payment breaks down as such:
- £30 per week for those with parents earning under £20,817 p.a.;
- £20 per week for those with parents earning between £20,818 and £25,521 p.a.;
- £10 per week for those with parents earning between £25,522 and £30,810 p.a.
Additionally, bonus payments of £100 are available to students. If the student returns to their courses for a second year, a total of £500 extra money can be claimed in bonus payments.
[edit] Benefits
The Labour Party claims the EMA scheme benefits greatly to teenagers from low-income households, encouraging people to stay in education past the legally required age of 16 (end of year 11; fourth year in Scotland). Once in education it encourages high attendance in return for bonuses. A recent report [2] suggests that even with the EMA parents earning less than £30,000 a year still struggle to support teenagers to enable them to stay in education past 16.
In tests done by 56 of the 150 local education authorities, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Loughborough Universities found staying-on rates improved up 5.9 percentage points among those who were eligible.[1] This effect was most pronounced amongst boys whose parents were unemployed or employed in unskilled or semi-skilled manual jobs, the group with lowest stay-on rates, and arguably facing the most social pressure to earn money and peer pressure that education is unimportant. Hence, the EMA appears to be well-targeted at the most problematic and needy groups.
[edit] Criticisms
Some students can "sponge" off this system. For example, if a student's parents are divorced, and their parents' income came to £35,000 p.a. pre divorce, the student in question could live with their mother, who earns £17,500 p.a. Because they only live with their mother, the household income would be the mother's wages, and not the fathers. EMA therefore discriminates against the nuclear family. However, this 'incentive' to define as a single parent exists for all benefits that are means-tested at a benefit unit level and is difficult to overcome without discriminating against lone parents.
Another criticism of EMA is that as students can receive bonus payments of up to £500 over two years for meeting predicted grades and passing exams. This makes it appealing to study subjects which have been labelled as "easier", rather than more stretching A-levels. Also, as bonus payments can be achieved by meeting targets set by the student, this encourages the setting of easily achieveable targets so that a student can get the money.
Both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservative party have stated opposition to EMA [3]Liberal Democrat education spokesman Phil Willis, said: "There are significantly more important things to do with £20m than give young people a Christmas bonus." [4]
Conservative spokesman Chris Grayling said: "This is another blatant example of the government trying to fiddle the figures. Bribing young people to sign up for courses they may not complete might make ministers' targets look achievable - but they do absolutely nothing to help solve this country's chronic skills shortage."
