SPENDING CUTS: Dead weight cost or help for 2,826 students? (From Daily Echo)

SPENDING CUTS: Dead weight cost or help for 2,826 students?

2:28pm Tuesday 14th December 2010 in In Depth reports

GOVERNMENT ministers say the allowances are inefficient – a view hotly disputed by supporters of the EMA scheme.

Chancellor George Osborne, when announcing plans to axe the scheme in the spending review, said it had very high “dead weight costs”.

And the Department for education instead announced plans to replace the scheme with targeted support for pupils who it said faced “genuine financial barriers to participation”.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb claimed 90 per cent of students receiving EMA would have stayed in education without it, so the new “streamlined grants” will ensure “better value for money”.

He said: “Given the economic climate, the state of the public finances and the very difficult decisions we have had to make across Government, it is only right that we should find a better, more effective way of targeting support to those young people who really need financial support to continue in education.

But numerous studies show the EMA, introduced by Labour, is a key factor in increasing and maintaining the number of young people taking part in education.

John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, spoke yesterday at Itchen College in support of their “day of action” to save the Education Maintenance Allowance.

He said: “The EMA supports 16 -19 year olds from low income households to continue in learning. Since 2004, the scheme has been rolled out across Southampton so that 2,826 young people in the city benefit from the allowance.

“Without this fantastic allowance, many young people here will be discouraged from continuing in learning.”