After Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA)

A student has asked for an opinion on the changes to the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) and the effects it will have on students.

A member who works in a secondary school and until recently administered EMA for continuing students and the 16-19 Bursary Fund that replaced it has provided the following information.

The EMA has now been closed for new applicants but previously gave sixth form students from households earning (from memory) approximately £23k and below the opportunity to receive a maintenance payment of between £10 and £30 for each week of term, subject to meeting certain conditions such as satisfactory attendance and satisfactory classwork.

This system was abolished by the coalition in 2010, meaning that as of September 2011 no new applicants were accepted. EMA will also be ceasing entirely for continuing students at the end of this academic year (who had applied prior to Sep 2011 and who are still studying).

After a lot of pressure on this issue, an alternative system was designed and developed by Simon Hughes, Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader, and adopted by the Government.

This is a much smaller scheme, but gives schools and colleges a set pot of money which they can then use to issue bursaries and grants to students who they feel are facing financial disadvantage.

The scheme therefore guarantees a £1200 grant for a small number of students who are at most risk of leaving education (e.g. children in care, care leavers, severely disabled, and most teenage parents).

If there is any money left over, this can then be distributed at the school's discretion. In the member's experience in a secondary school's sixth form this resulted in a change from approximately 20 students who received £30 per week EMA under the old system to around 6 or 7 students who received a Bursary under the new system of £10 a week

However, there are NO national rules or guidelines for the use of this money - its entirely discretionary for schools and colleges as to who gets what and why - and there seems to have so far been practically no financial reporting back to DfE on how it is spent. It seems unlikely that the Government is tracking whether this money is being well used more generally.The purpose of the Bursary scheme is to focus funds at those students who are most at risk of dropping out of post-16 education for financial reasons, at a fraction of the cost of EMA. However, the lack of rules and monitoring (and funds) does give reasonable grounds to question the effectiveness at targeting enough money to the right people to achieve these aims - but it's also safe to say that without the Liberal Democrats there wouldn't be any replacement for EMA at all.