Have Your Say on a possible replacement for EMA

skipsmum

x_angel_x wrote: »

A Job thats what!!! What is to stop this lazy generation going out and getting a Saturday job like the rest of us used to? They seem to think that everything is just going to drop in their laps. Try working for pocket money etc!!!!:mad:

I'm not talking about pocket money. Id like to find someone who wants odd jobs doing in return for £36 train fare.

skipsmum

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Parents get child benefit and child tax credit to fund their children whilst they're in education, although some parents seem to forget this.

Child benefit £15 ish a week. Tax credit £20 a week (2 children).
Bus & train £36 a week.

I don't forget this, I'm saying the price of travel to college makes it very difficult for 16-18s. I don't think the way forward is EMA, but I do think we should have subsidised/child fares for 16-18s to travel to their nearest appropriate college.

There seems to be an awful lot of new posters on this thread.

MelindaJane

I have nothing against those who need a little extra getting help. My daughter is the only one in her year who doesn't get EMA. She wouldn't mind but she watches her friends use it for alcohol and Kentucky. She has to have a part time job because we can't give her any extra because we are supporting other children at university. It is a very unfair system. Maybe travel or book vouchers would mean the money was spent properly. Also the system is flawed and many people claim unfairly or by knowing the loopholes in the system !!

Oldernotwiser

skipsmum wrote: »

Child benefit £15 ish a week. Tax credit £20 a week (2 children).
Bus & train £36 a week.

If you were on a lower income though, so less able to support your children out of your own funds, child tax credit would be considerably more than this.

Jowo_2

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Parents get child benefit and child tax credit to fund their children whilst they're in education, although some parents seem to forget this.

I'm always baffled by how things like transport fares, books and pens are seen as some of kind of wild and extraordinary expense that ought to be reimbursed by the public purse.

They sound like fairly conventional expenses to me which also means the country incurs and additional huge expensive burden to process and distribute them.

I await with interest to see whether the Universal Credit system can deliver benefits much more simply than some households who may receive half a dozen separate ones - anything from JSA & IS or WTC, CTC, CB, Council tax discount, LHA, EMA.

Then a household will receive a single sum of x amount and will break the mentality that each type of basic household expense has to be compartmentalised and paid for on a separate basis, therefore certain types of expense must have an allowance dedicated to it.

skipsmum

Jowo, I think thats a good idea - it is confusing especially when everything is compartmentalised so neatly. I just think if our 16-18 year olds are still to be counted as children in every other way (staying on at school, child benefit, no alcohol etc) they should be able to have child price bus fares!

jjosfa

In my experience the EMA is used for fripperies!...back in the day when you went to college to learn you got a p/t job that paid not a lot but enough to get by, you lived in grotty digs, & looked fairly well...grungy...nowadays they need the flashest pad to live in with the flashest gadgets & best clobber....kids need to learn this comes after you've put the hard slog in & when you can afford to pay for it yourself not on a state handout...it's not all about instant gratification!

teapackets

I work in a college as support to the tutor and at the lower level 1 & 2 courses the majority of the students are there because of EMA, not because they want to learn. They just mess around in class and distract the odd one or two that really want to be there.

They get their EMA because the Register shows them as present. From what I see, I think the money is spent solely on the vending machines and cigarettes if they smoke. It feels at times that we are doing nothing but crowd controlling and babysitting badly behaved children.

The college needs bums on seats funding, so they do nothing about disciplining to the point of expulsion. We are dragging them through a qualification that is fast becoming not worth the paper it's printed on.


I'm absolutely dreading next year when the law states they have to stay in education until 18 whilst not being paid for it

The EMA system is not fair, but I don't know what the answer is.

poet123

teapackets wrote: »

I work in a college as support to the tutor and at the lower level 1 & 2 courses the majority of the students are there because of EMA, not because they want to learn. They just mess around in class and distract the odd one or two that really want to be there.

They get their EMA because the Register shows them as present. From what I see, I think the money is spent solely on the vending machines and cigarettes if they smoke. It feels at times that we are doing nothing but crowd controlling and babysitting badly behaved children.

The college needs bums on seats funding, so they do nothing about disciplining to the point of expulsion. We are dragging them through a qualification that is fast becoming not worth the paper it's printed on.


I'm absolutely dreading next year when the law states they have to stay in education until 18 whilst not being paid for it

The EMA system is not fair, but I don't know what the answer is.

As a tutor I couln't agree more. This is the reality of the situation. We have pass rate and retention rate figures constantly rammed down our throats by management, and short of violence, expulsion or suspension is a rarity.