“My daughter at the moment receives ALG, before that she received EMA. It helped to buy the items needed and once a fortnight to go cinema on orange wednesdays, clothing etc. I would rather she and many other students claim that, than have thousands of students claim JSA. Which would be a third more than ema payments and in some cases where people claim the minimum ema benefit would have been £70 pound more. Work is hard to find with inexperience and yes we know there are people that easily walk into jobs, but not everyone has the same quality. Even engineering is not as stable as it once was, my partner was made redundant at sps technologies, luckily a week later they had a huge order and he was offered his job back in the same week. These are uncertain times and although many people think there is a lot of work out there, you only have to go to the jobsite and click on all jobs in Leicester, then look at the result and compare to the unemployed in Leicester, the ratio of people to jobs is ridiculous and then imagine what it would be like when students can no longer stay on at college.”

“Clee, Melton, schools dont provide text books any more they give kidsprint outs of what they need, imaginably at great cost, (but probably less than buying books). In fact, schools nowadays charge the kids/parents for everything- if they make a clay model, etc it all has to be paid for or it gets left at school and then destroyed. Yes I can see the reasoning in paying for stuff, but not in destroying it because its not been paid for.
Students in FE and HE have to buy all their own books, so in some cases EMA would have been a benfit to some; those who used it genuinely for college.”

“My friends when i grew up wasted there ema on the computer arcade and going out. As my dad was deemed to earn too much to qualify me for this incentive that i hadn't even heard of before going to sixth form i did not get it, but was incidentally poorer than them. Its not essential and rarely gets used on what its meant to be, so scrap it!”

“MB & Louise, it is a long, long time since I was in the 6th form at SCHOOL. Part of the problem here is the blurring of the edges when defining SCHOOL and COLLEGE. PUPILS in SCHOOLS are not the same as STUDENTS in universities and colleges of further education even if they like to think of themselves as all grown up, and are treated differently. As Paul and MB admit, neither of them needed the EMA, and nor do the rest of 6th formers in SCHOOLS. As I said in my first post - get yourselves a saturday job like I had to do.”

“Couple of points...

1) CGLee, (as somebody else has already pointed out) when did you last go to college? EMA is for college (not school) students, who do have to buy their own course materials, books/pens/folders etc. Most course books can be bought at a discounted rate through the school but they are by no means free!

2) I was entitled to, and took, EMA even though I could have managed without. My reasoning? I'm going to spend the rest of my life putting money in to the system, only right I should actually get something out of it! Narrow minded view I know, but true? I think so.

3) Why remove it all together? Why not sort it out? It's very simple, have an allowance, worked out in the same way but don't actually give it to the students. When they bring in valid receipts for bus travel/books/resources have the money paid out (up to their allowance), any thing that isn't spent goes back in to "the pot". Therefore, if it isn't spent on course materials/transport, they don't get it and it can't be spent on fags/clothes etc. Not hard is it really?

What is wrong with this/all governments?”

“Many valid points raised in an intellctual discussion...
So, with regret, this may bring down the tone somewhat...
Isn't it also the case that whilst young people are being paid to stay at school they do not appear in the unemployed figures?”

“I went to Leicester college about 8 years ago and most of the students were, as Maggie says, from ethnic minorities and single parent families. I was from a single parent family too and qualified for EMA but didn't take it. Instead, I worked a series of part time jobs that gave me good experience, discipline, time management skills and a determined mind to work for more and succeed. I graduated in chemistry a few years ago now and although I do not work within that field, the hands on experience I gained from working throughout my education was almost as important as the education itself and enabled me to have the confidence to apply myself to working in any field I wanted. I'd say 90% of the students that I met, that were on EMA, used the money to supplement their social lives and were continually repeating irrelevant courses just to put off the reality of work. No wonder Maggie is concerned. Fewer students cluttering up Leicester colleges "irrelevant study courses," means less money to waste on red tape. Now that would be a shame wouldn't it?”

“Colleges obviously have a vested interest in the EMS scheme being maintained; they draw down funding from the Government for each student that enrols with them. Colleges should be encouraged to offer much better value for money for the courses they run instead of expecting an automatic level of funding regardless of quality or suitability of the courses undertaken. Colleges invariably turn out more hairdressers and Indian head massage experts than engineers and plumbers!”

“Why do we insist on keeping people in education longer and longer? There are many teachers being terrorised by 14yr olds who shouldn't be in school but are kept there as some sort of social work, thus ruining the education of those who do wish to study. Forcing adults to stay on until they're 18 will just exacerbate this problem. As for EMA, if parents can support their kids to 16 they can continue to 18!”

“Who really thinks that children leaving school at 16 will walk into jobs ? Get real !
If they didn't get this money for basic essentials (food, drink, clothes etc) and their parents were too poor to pay, they would simply claim JSA - which is more than £30 per week.
I don't know the household income limit for getting EMA - maybe this could be looked at - but overall I don't think we should hammer young people any more”