£180m bursary scheme replaces EMA

The scrapping of EMA became part of the wave of student protests during the winter

The government is set to give details of a replacement scheme for Education Maintenance Allowances which were scrapped in England last year.

There have been reports that up to £180m could be available in discretionary support for students from low-income backgrounds.

The £560m EMA scheme had provided up to £30 per week to help teenagers stay on at sixth forms and colleges.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said the funding had been poorly-targeted.

But Labour’s Andy Burnham claimed scrapping the allowances would mean more youngsters dropping out of education and that social mobility would be “thrown into reverse”.

The funding, received by 650,000 16 to 19-year-olds in England, provided grants of between £10 and £30 per week – with the full amount for families with a household income of less than £21,817.

The allowances had been introduced by Labour in an attempt to tackle the longstanding problem of a high teenage drop-out rate from education, particularly among poorer students.

But the coalition government attacked the EMA scheme as wasteful – and said that it would replace it with a smaller, discretionary fund.

An anticipated increase in the size of this discretionary fund, to be announced on Monday, is likely to be seized upon by the opposition as evidence of a re-think.

Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, said it was going to be a “very half-hearted reinstatement”.

“The government were wrong to abolish it. I have seen the difference it made, not just to help people stay on, but also young people who do stay on don’t have to do so many hours part-time work to make ends meet.”

There are EMA schemes in Scotland and Wales which will continue. Allowances in Northern Ireland are under review.

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