The closer we get to the election – and to the inevitable period of public spending austerity – the louder the criticism for one of the schemes that has made a difference to disadvantaged households, the Education Maintenance Allowance.
The EMA programme has faced criticism since it was introduced in 2004/05 as a national system of means-tested allowances of between £10 and £30 per week for young people continuing in full-time education post-16.
Most recently it was the Local Government Association that claimed the ‘vast majority’ of 16-year-olds who received the allowance would have stayed on in education anyway, that it had a minimal effect on ‘staying on’ rates for 17- and 18-year-olds and was a waste of money. Think-tanks have also referred to the EMA as a ‘deadweight’ expense and a ‘flop’.
However, the evidence I have gathered shows cIearly that EMAs have been a successful innovation and should be maintained. My work puts the allowance in the context of the complex system of financial support for young people participating in education and training between the ages of 16 and 19, and support for their families more generally.
There is robust evidence that EMAs have increased participation and achievement among 16- and 17-year-olds and contributed to improved motivation and performance. Crucially, EMAs are restricted to low-income households, and disproportionately taken up by those with low achievement levels at school, those from ethnic minorities and those from single-parent families.
The fall in participation between 16 and 17 remains the major problem confronting the aspiration to increase participation towards 100% by 2015. With the evidence in favour of what the EMA can achieve – as well as evaluations that show that the efficacy of the allowance is linked to its rate – there should be an increase in the EMA for 17-year-olds. Just to keep pace with inflation would require an increase from £30 to £40 per week.
EMAs should be maintained despite the current crisis in public finances. There are other less well focused policies that cost a similar or greater amount. For example, if child benefit for 16–19s were means-tested on the same scale as EMAs it would produce a saving of around £585m – a broadly similar sum to the abolition of the allowances, though at the expense of the richest part of the population rather than the poorest.
Mick Fletcher is an education consultant specialising in the planning and funding of post-14 learning, and a sisiting research fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London. A copy of his report can be downloaded from the CfBT Education Trust website
