EMA withdrawall

Triker

I think it's a real shame for those students who used it for its intended use, to fund transport, books materials etc.

However my observations have been that a huge majority did not use it for this. Thus giving rise to complaints from adults and young people who did not qualify for it...not a fair system, like many.

I do think its a really bad concept that the government set young people up to have a sense of entitlement and then take the support away.

life_in_termoil

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Why not give any student who wants it jobs mending potholes, cutting park hedges, shifting litter, etc. All the jobs that they can't employ anyone to do since they spend too much on £250K CE salaries, £45K 'Ethics and Spirituality co-ordinators', and £40K 'Twitterer'?

Why not give those jobs to the long term unemployed that sit at home on their backsides watching jeremy kyle!

A._Badger

Triker wrote: »

I do think its a really bad concept that the government set young people up to have a sense of entitlement and then take the support away.

Remove the last six words from that and you are right.

hcb42

I think i worked three or four jobs when at college. I worked Saturdays just to pay the bus fare to get to college all week in the first place, and babysat every single weekend Friday and Saturday for 2 years while I studied my A Levels. My Dad was unemployed at the time and there were four kids, two younger than me, one also at college year above me. If people from poor backgrounds want to go to college they can, without state handouts there are way more Pt jobs around now than 25 years ago, far more darned supermarkets open 24 hours which need staffing at weekends for a start. I live in a rural place now, but the few college kids I know around here do walk the few miles to main road to get a bus on a sunday morning at 7am.

Shakethedisease

When I was 16/17... during the big 80's recession, 3 million unemployed and all that. I, and all my peers left school and did a YTS for about 30 quid a week for 2 years. Sound familiar ?

I can only assume those crapping on about Saturday jobs and the like have never experienced what it's like to be 16/17 in the midst of a huge recession. Where there are no Saturday jobs, no supermarket shelf-stacker jobs or paper rounds going. Especially in areas of high unemployment and rural areas.

Try not to be so self-satisfied and smug about 'what you did'. Times change. 16 and 17 year olds are at the bottom of of the pile in terms of part-time work atm.

savemoney

Well said fellow Mode fan

I have two daughters at college both work hard one can't do work due to disability the other works part time at a hotel when the work is there. She isnt typical teenager either she doesn't go out drinking, she works almost every night doing homework or revising for her exams soon. She wants to go to uni shortly to study forensic science

There aren't many jobs around where I live on the coast, a lot of part time jobs are now being grabbed I suspect by people who also work full time and want extra work

Its far better to pay a student who wants to learn £30 than pay Job seekers surely? Not all students do it for just for money they want to better themselves, students still need some money to get by not all parents can support there kids.

I accept country is in a mess but they could at least keep EMA abet cut it, it may be tough but at least something for students to get by

I hear is far more difficult to young people to get work now than any other age group, these kids are our future what sort of message is this government trying to send out?

All I see is lies, lies from Libs about student fees, lies on Tories saying in Jan 2010 they wont scrap EMA, oh and they know exactly what mess we were in anyway they use that as an excuse to justify there blatant lies.

Shakethedisease wrote: »

When I was 16/17... during the big 80's recession, 3 million unemployed and all that. I, and all my peers left school and did a YTS for about 30 quid a week for 2 years. Sound familiar ?

I can only assume those crapping on about Saturday jobs and the like have never experienced what it's like to be 16/17 in the midst of a huge recession. Where there are no Saturday jobs, no supermarket shelf-stacker jobs or paper rounds going. Especially in areas of high unemployment and rural areas.

Try not to be so self-satisfied and smug about 'what you did'. Times change. 16 and 17 year olds are at the bottom of of the pile in terms of part-time work atm.

toby3000

FATBALLZ wrote: »

I don't see why it suddenly becomes far more expensive when a child goes to college as opposed to their final year of high school.

I'm not sure if this is national policy, but in Cumbria the Local Authority provide free transport to your nearest school; because I didn't go to the school whose catchment area I was in my parents had to pay for my school bus until year 11, when it became free (since the school whose catchment area I was in didn't have a 6th form)

There is a lot of smugness in this thread, but then it appears to have attracted a group of saints who all worked 10 hours a day during college/uni and never had so much as a pint.

For one thing, jobs are hard to come by, and the easiest jobs to pick up are in bars and restaurants where you need to be 18. For another, if you come from a background that doesn't value education then you're not going to be too excited about stacking shelfs in Tesco at 3am to fund your bus fare.

Incidentally, I did think today that a much more socially useful alternative might be to remove free buses from the over 60s and provide free public transport to the under-25s

dori2o

If it is used for the correct things then fine, but as has been said too many abuse the system.

It should always have been paid in vouchers, as many other benefits should, or it could have been paid by the colleges. I.e. the colleges provide the bus pases and college equipment for those who qualify. Then it couldn't be spent on things that were nothing to do with education.

I was lucky that I went straight into an apprenticeship from leaving school so was being paid to learn by British Aerospace. Unfortunately, despite it being only 13 years ago, these opportunities no longer exist in the numbers they did when I left school.

mrmoose

I finished college the september before EMA was brought in. Back then, everybody I knew had a Evening or Weekend job, shops in town seemed to have Monday - Friday staff full time, then saturdays and sundays were a supervisor then all college age people. I used to get £2.50 a day from my parents for my bus to/from college, leaving me around £1.50 for a sandwich and drink for dinner, anything beyond that I had to pay for myself. I only earned around £3.70 an hour back then, but that £30 odd a week paid for my a few down the pub a couple of nights a week, and later on kept my old banger on the road.

It seems less than 10 years later, all the 17-20 year olds are driving round in newer cars than me (my first car was 14 years old - alot of 17-20 year olds nowdays seem to have nearly new cars!), with designer clothes, contract mobiles. Doesnt seem right somehow....

paddedjohn

oz0707 wrote: »

Will it really be compulsory to stay on in education until 18? What a joke. Kid's who aren't interested will just be distracting lessons. I think your old enough to decide what path to go down at 16.

if they have a job to go to then they will be able to leave before 18.