The EMA is a vital lifeline for students from poorer families, argues Shane Chowen, and the government should think again about cutting it
The abolition of the education maintenance allowance, to be replaced by a derisory alternative, has been met by students in further education with anger, frustration and anxiety. Anger because of the misrepresentation that plagues the government's policy on support for learners, frustration because many students believe they are taking the rap for a crisis we did not cause, and anxiety because the inevitable question on each EMA recipient's mind – that's 620,000 young people from the poorest households – is: "How am I going to be able to afford to study and progress without this assurance of weekly support?"
The government's proposed alternative, the so-called enhanced learner support fund, is so impractical as to be almost laughable. This is essentially a topping-up of the money schools and colleges receive to distribute in discretionary hardship grants. This scheme is doomed from the start. The amount of money will be tiny compared to the budget for EMAs, and with institutions left to choose who and what they fund, a postcode lottery will emerge. The consequences of subjective judgments on "hardship" will leave thousands without the stable support they need. Furthermore, when colleges are contracting their student services teams, there is simply not the capacity on the ground to deliver, with the right outcomes, what the EMA does.
My hope is that the government has not realised what the effect of its decision will be and might reconsider, but my fear is that it simply does not care.
The coalition's rationale is based on just one report, from the National Foundation for Education Research, which stated that only 12% of EMA recipients would not have undertaken their course if they had not received the EMA. The report surveyed students in year 11, some of whom would not have been old enough to receive the EMA. Little analysis was offered by the government, certainly not enough to back up such a radical decision.
Moreover, other research on EMA, from organisations such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies, has shown that it has a strong impact on participation, as well as particular impacts on the retention of certain groups such as young black people. The NUS's own research, which polled over 2,000 EMA recipients, found that 60% say they would not be able to continue learning without it.
Let's be very clear who we are talking about. Some 91% of young people who are entitled to free school meals at year 11 receive EMA, 83% of young people from single-parent households receive it, as do 76% of the lowest-achieving 16-year-olds who continue in education. What future can the government offer these young people now?
The FE sector has a proud record of improving lives and is often the engine behind social mobility. Not only has the EMA been successful in achieving higher participation retention and achievement (including 7.3% higher participation for females, according to the IFS), but it has created an empowered generation who are equipped to progress in FE, then later into higher education, and it has instilled a desire for lifelong learning in all its forms.
For young people in low-income families, the EMA offers the knowledge that your family will not have to make sacrifices to support you through college. This is not simply about having less money in your pocket. This is about a fundamental shift in culture towards staying on in post-16 education.
The schools minister, Nick Gibb, told MPs last week that attitudes to staying on in education post-16 had "changed" and that young people no longer needed an incentive payment.
He is right that attitudes have changed – but that is directly linked to the impact EMA has had on low-income families, and the decision to kill the allowance that offered so many a better future will raise the barriers to participation and change attitudes right back again, especially when support to poorer families is being cut elsewhere.
A modern society cannot tolerate an education system that closes itself off to poorer students by failing to support them. Students will not accept the government turning the clock back on their ambitions, for if they succeed, the consequences will be devastating.
Further education students will take to the streets of London on Wednesday for a joint National Union of Students and University and College Union national demonstration. We will demand that ministers fund, rather than cut, our future.
• Shane Chowen is NUS vice president (further education)