Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) Needed, or not?

[PorkiePVFC]

£10, £20 or £30

EMA, has come under scrutiny lately about what the money is used for by students. People believe that the government giving students cash every week in their banks is not what is needed to help students in there studies.

They believe better ways would be to provide the students which are eligible for EMA items such as,

-Bus Pass
-Stationary
-Books etc

I was wondering whether anyone could give me feedback on what they believe should change in the system, is it right that people deserve this money when they dont spend it on the right stuff or should their be more legistlations on how this £30 is used?

Any thoughts will be great

[deejaybet]

i actually think the EMA system is unjust... a young adult getting £30 EMA vs a young adult not entitled to any? its income assessed but what about those parents who have major debts but are slightly just over the EMA income checklist... their children get nothing while parents with low income or no income scamming the government for benefits as such and they have no debts.. well their children get the full EMA

[PorkiePVFC]

i actually believe being a student myself that half if not more off this money goes on drink and other items which just makes this country more disruptive.

[deejaybet]

also agree on that... kind of encouraging underage drinking and anti-social behaviour? then they wonder why the kids are so disruptive... maybe because they cant wait till the weekend to get "sloshed" or the mid-week clubbing events (note this is the minority of youth and not the majority)

[Spodaz]

It's over 5 years since I was doing my A Levels, and i think EMA had just become available then, I knew I wasn't entitled to it though.

I think it is more of an issue with University Funding, for families who are not so well off they get a full grant in most cases which is quite right, those families very well off can afford to pay for it anyway, and those right on the border get nothing because according to the goverment they are earning enough but cannot really afford to pay, so you end up with massive student debts. Bit off topic, but thought I would mention it!

[James Smith]

I don't doubt there are a small number of individual for whom this is a lifeline, but the the majority it seems an odd way to use tax payers cash.

Back when I was that age (he says sounding like your father) you had this thing called a Saturday time job if you wanted to earn some money. I can quite understand why people wouldnt bother so much now if you get £30 a week for just showing up to your course!

The odd thing about these payments is that then when you get to uni you have to pay them tuition fees to attend. No real logic to either policy that I can fathom.

Personally I think all education should be free, but the entry should be restricted based on ability only. For some reason ability is a dirty word when in reality its very important.

That is to say invest money in the bright, don't chuck it away on people who wont benefit that much from it. Trying to shove 50% of people through higher education which is the current aim seems to badly miss the point that its only aimed at the top 20% in terms of ability in the first place and there simply are not graduate jobs for that many people. Whats more I bet an awful lot of people in the top 15-20% end up not going due to the debt, especially from poor to middling backgrounds, which is precisely the sort of people who ought to be helped.

All bonkers in my opinion, and glad to see some people on here think the EMA is odd even if they are receipt of it. There are lots of other payments like this which also seem very odd and just mean higher taxes for those that pay it.

Regards,

[PorkiePVFC]

personally the government need to think abit better off there ideas, they try to get more people on the courses by offering all this stuff. Most of the people who dont want to be in college only disrupt their classes and only attend because its an easy way to act like there doing something and can get a bit of cash for attending.

[c44]

To continue receiving the allowance though you have to have full attendance and consistently high grades; I don't think the time and effort you'd have to invest to get only £30 would be worth it if you weren't going to take it seriously.

You could earn the same amount of money only working one day a week, so for someone to be in college for five days really wouldn't make financial sense if they were only there for the money.

I think it's a good idea even though it's not a lot; some people wouldn't be able to afford to study at college otherwise so anything helps. I'm sure the ones who are really financially badly off would have to have a weekend job as well anyway.

[deejaybet]

consistently high grades my **** i dont remember anyone being told they aint getting EMA because their marks are not high enough.. but i do remember a number of idiots just there wasting time

[go4it]

EMA - a Labour initiative which is helping to destroy education.

Why do we continue to give handouts to the poor? What does this teach young people?

There are many students who choose further education just to claim EMA. They have no interest in the course and will never go to University. Some could be hampering the education of others, taking up valuable teaching resources.

Now the EMA form - teachers have to tick the boxes to state that the students have attended and produced work to a satisfactory standard. I wonder how many dare to cross a box, and be prepared for the uproar when that student realises they won't be getting the £30. Teachers do not have time to deal with this.

Someone was saying to me the other day that their children do not qualify for EMA, but if his wife stopped working her part time job then they would.

We continue to give these handouts to the poor. One of the lastest initiatives I've heard for school children is giving poor families £300 to spend on out of school activities. Of course those who can afford (and probably struggle day to day with general bills) will still have to pay full price.

The only way the £30 a week would work was if students were placed in primary schools on a sort of job - working with primary school children in English and Maths or helping with after school clubs. They would of course have to apply for the jobs and demonstrate their capability

But if a 16+ student wants extra money there are plenty of jobs out there. If a family needs extra money there are plenty of courses and jobs out there for those that can be bothered.

I don't think anything should be given to the students. Education is about learning, not about getting cash for turning up. If anything is handed out (bus pass, photocopy card) etc then it should be given to everyone. Labour talk about the gap between rich and poor, is it any wonder it's getting wider when they treat both groups separately.

Sorry for the rant! We need some back to basic education, and Labour are just not up to it.

[deejaybet]

completely agree with you on that

[ejmeads1]

just thought id add my 2 cents, even though it may be a bit late.

As a student whos 17 and whos elegibal for the full £30, i find it to be extremely useful now for communiting to and from college and also for food in the week. It costs me around £40 per week in fuel for my car and im paying £175 per month for my insurance so this money does help me quite alot.

I must say that the majority of students do spend it on alcohol and having a good time, while a small majority find it very useful and put it to good use.

My college is rather strict with it which i think is a good thing if your looking at it from the governments point of view as we have to have good grades and allways attend, this obviously isnt as good from the students point of view

Elliot

[bitebar]

Hi Guys,
I relied upon EMA when I was at college to pay for my driving lessons. I was struggling to work because of where I lived - learning to drive was important to me so I was able to commute to a place of work.

The college was pretty strict on removing a persons EMA for the week if they missed any lessons.

I think there should be more opportunities for young people and it's nice to see David Cameron talking about a civilian based "national service" that would make teenagers put something back into their communities.

I volunteer as a Civilian Instructor within the Air Training Corps and think that more teenagers should be directed to join the cadet forces.

Dave.

[Richard.curran]

Are you allowed to use it for Driving Lessons? That's good news, I should tell driving instructors to pass that information onto their learners so they can pay their lesson fees without having to ever miss a lesson due to cash flow.

[TomTechITSupport]

i loved EMA, only thing was when you have gd relationship with your tutor you don't have to turn up to get signed off. But i think it's suppose to give sense of responsibility as well as been at college with no uniform and been at the age you can learn to drive etc. They could restructure it to make them work harder for it.