The Government risk making today’s GCSE winners next years NEETs by scrapping EMA. On the day hundreds of thousands of the poorest teenagers receive their GCSE’s results they will also be uncertain of their future now the scheme has been scrapped.

As 90% of pupils on Free School Meals go on to receive EMA, the Government should not be narrowing or even risking their educational prospects. The Government say the EMA has not yet been cut and we cant tell what effect it will have, but they forget that those planning to start courses this September may not be able to without prior knowledge if they will get funding. According research by the trade union UCU 40% of EMA recipients would not have even started courses without the funding. A further 70% said they would have dropped out without receiving EMA.

It is widely accepted by independent research centrers like the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) that the EMA is better than the new Government’s bursary scheme.

This is how the IFS describe the Government’s new bursary replacement:

“…any children on free school meals are currently entitled to the full £1,170 for EMA, if their circumstances do not change. It must be the case that most such students would be worse off under the bursary scheme that they would have been under the EMA - on average, to the tune of £370 a year.”

This is how the IFS describes the EMA:

“The EMA significantly increased participation rates in post-16 education among young adults who were eligible to receive it. In particular, it increased the proportion of eligible 16-year-olds staying in education from 65% to 69%, and increased the proportion of eligible 17-year-olds in education from 54% to 61%. The simple cost-benefit analysis mentioned above suggests that even taking into account the level of deadweight that was found, the costs of EMA are completely offset.”

There is a clear divide between what went before for the poorest teenagers and those today looking at entering further education.

Although today will be a good day for many in this country, there will be hundreds of thousands of the poorest teenagers who for no fault of their own and regardless of their desire for an education but due to bad government policy will see their choices narrowed and their incomes cut. What’s even more disgraceful is that across the country there will be households now where one child is getting support to stay in education but the younger brother or sister, who should be starting college in September, is now instead in limbo and unsure of their future due to this Government’s actions.

In a week when the number of NEETs (those Not in Education, Employment or Training) has risen the government should not by scrapping EMA risk creating more NEETs otherwise it only helps create a lost generation of unqualified and unskilled young people, who feel that the government is against them and that they are not worth investing in. Recent weeks should show that’s not a good idea.

The government should while there is still time reverse their decision on EMA or at least put off scrapping it for another year until they have something better in place. It won’t cost anything other than face.

As pointed out previously, the Government are against the bulk of research which supports EMA, leading economists in the country and if recent polls are accurate, a Tory Chaired Select Committee, and they are also against public opinion. Even the author of the report, which the government originally based its entire case for scrapping EMA on, has come out and said he opposes the abolition of EMA.

It’s truly shameful to think that when it comes to education cuts, a Prime Minister and an Education Secretary, who were both privately educated, are not looking first at the gold plated subsidy to the private school sector, but instead to the pockets of the poorest teenagers.

The government are selling out the poorest teenagers in this country. It’s just another warning the education system in our country post 16 risks being one where a pupil’s finances and not their ability will determine how far they can go in the education system of our country…

If the Government got grades in the post today on this policy, it is clear they would have been failed…