Is EMA Fair???

simpywimpy

My son gets EMA. He got below average GCSE results but not because he couldnt be bothered - not everyone on low income is a lowlife OP

He now goes to college because he wants to learn a trade and is really enjoying it. It does however cost £13.50 for him to get there and back on the bus and I will expect him to pay this from the EMA allowance to teach him money/life skills.

If he could get a part time job he would - he is looking

I thought the OP was particularly unfair to brand all low income kids under the same banner of useless/cant be bothered types

jamesfinch

I went to a private school from age 5 to 18 and my father earned well over the threshold for EMA.

My parents separated when I was about 16, I lived with my mother (who didn't/doesn't work but receives maintenance). I got full EMA for two years, now get full grants and a full £3,200 yearly bursary from Oxford Uni on the basis of my "household income". Good times, no complaints here.

daska

Not all parents are happy for their children to carry on in education when they have reached an age that they could leave school. It can be a simple case of 'get a job or get out'.

surfsister

atypical wrote: »

How have these kids who need the support been coping with years 7 to 11 without it? Often they will stay at their secondary school to do their A-levels but suddenly they are entitled to £30 a week which the government tells us they absolutely need to support their learning. And bonuses?! They don't fit into the idea that the money is to meet costs.

They could have provided travel passes and a fixed amount in vouchers to be spent on stationary at the beginning of the year if this was the true intention of EMA.

It's a bribe dressed in politically correct clothing - and anyone who needs to be bribed into education doesn't deserve it.

In our schools case we don't have a sixth form (in sticks) so kids have to travel quite a way for sixth form, parents don't care what they do (the ones I help!). As you say free travel would be much better and a book allowance or whatever.

Also i do know kids who spent it all on drink n cinema etc as my daughter knows kids who just waste it and live near school so walk. Guess all sytems get abused.

Magnolia

Well said student_advisor - I too work in FE and see many of these kids just trying to better their lot.

skiTTish

We are above the threshold for EMA ( normal courses )
But as my son is on a E2E course ,he still will receive it .

He is on a course ,building up his physical fitness and stamina in readiness for joining the army next year ( at the end of the course )
We pay a fortune in taxes ,don't receive any benefits and my son is going into a career with many risks and few monetary rewards so if you don't like the fact he is getting a piddly £30 a week to help pay for kit and clothing not covered by the course ,then TOUGH !

atypical

Magnolia wrote: »

Well said student_advisor - I too work in FE and see many of these kids just trying to better their lot.

I don't think anyone disagrees with people who want an education getting the reasonable help they need. But any assistance should be targeted and purposeful. It shouldn't resemble grapeshot as EMA currently does, hoping it hits the correct target.

Perhaps then more who truly need the assistance can be helped with the savings.

simpywimpy

I agree that it needs more careful targetting as do many of this countries benefits at the minute - incl child benefit

zzzLazyDaisy

Can I just say that there was no EMA in the dark ages when I was at school. The school leaving age was 15, but because I was bright and at grammar school, I was allowed to stay on and take my 'O' levels (now gcse's).

But my parents couldn't afford to keep me on at school for another two years, as I had two younger siblings, and my dad was working all hours just to keep the family afloat. The headmaster even called them into school to try to get them to let me stay on, but to be fair they had both left school at 15, and no-one from my family had ever been to university, so they didn't really 'get' it.

I studied for my 'A' levels after work, it took years to get the grades I needed, but I did eventually get to university to study law - at 31 as a mature student, and by then also a single parent. Fortunately for me, there was still a grant system in place - had it been today, I could never have afforded it.

If EMA had been around when I was a teenager, I would have been able to stay on and take my 'A' levels, instead of having to leave school at 16, and the whole course of my life would have been different. I don't regret going to Uni later, or having my family when I did - but I also wouldn't want to go back to those days of poor opportunity for kids from poor familes, either.

Absinthe_Fairy

I went to college before full EMA was introduced (though I did get a free bus pass and end-of-year bonuses, which I was very grateful for - bus would have cost a fortune!). My younger brother got EMA - I was really jealous actually, because he got £30 a week for doing nothing while I only earned £22 a week working every Saturday for two years! :rotfl:

Mind, it meant I got work experience much earlier than he did - he didn't really have any incentive to get a part-time job, though he did get one later waiting tables when he was at uni.

It's so not true that those on low incomes are necessarily low achievers, either. I would have been entitled to EMA had it been around when I was at college, as would a good few of my friends, and a number of us came out with straight As at A Level.

I would have thought most students would have to get a bus to college. I don't know anyone who lived within walking distance of college (though in the last couple of years they've built a sixth form centre at the bottom of my parents' road :rolleyes:). Though that could just be my local authority - no school in the area had a sixth form (except for the Catholic schools) so you had to go to a FE college or join a Catholic school sixth form.

I definitely think the system is flawed - perhaps a fairer system, as some posters suggested, would involve giving out free bus passes. I was very grateful for mine as it would have cost a fortune otherwise, with going out of the county and the journey lasting over an hour and involving two buses (had to get up at half past five every morning, nightmare!) - though that was personal choice as of the two local colleges, one was the Catholic sixth form which compelled you to wear uniform and take Religious Studies at AS Level, and the other had a terrible reputation.

I do feel for your daughter OP, it must be really annoying for her and I can understand why you're angry. However I think EMA does a lot of good for a lot of people, as other posters have suggested, even if it does need a bit of a shake up.