April 13th, 2005
What is EMA?
EMA is a weekly payment of £10, £20 or £30, paid during term-time, depending on your household income. The money is intended to help with the day-to-day costs when you stay on at school or college - such as travel, books and equipment for your course.
There are also £100 bonuses if you stick with your course and make good progress.
Am I missing something, or are the above paragraphs completely contradictory?
I’m going to Sixth Form but will not qualify for “Educational Maintenance Allowance”, money that the UK government has set aside to help students. It is weighted according to how much your parents or carers earn, as in students are entitled to a higher sum of money the lesser the income.
I’m not too bitter about this; I can understand the logic behind the government’s thinking. Students that live with parents / carers who bring in an average income can ask for help financially, whereas if the money isn’t coming in, they can’t. Some might see it as a bitter attack against “middle class English families” but truthfully I can’t really see the government treating every student equally, simply because it just isn’t feasible. I don’t know how many students there are in the UK but I know that there are enough that if everyone of them received £30, it would result in a considerable tax hike.
I have a friend who qualifies for EMA and to this I don’t have any qualms at all. I would be getting EMA if my parents decided to divorce. It’s rediculous thinking like that though– it’s trivialising the fact that divorce is a nasty process however it goes, if people who had to deal with that get EMA I fully support it. It’s alright to gripe about not receiving the same, but you have to think about why people receive it in the first place.
Nevertheless I do have some serious concerns over the proposed “bonus” scheme. That’s just rubbing it in a little too much. I say that the first paragraph is contradicting itself because seemingly the whole point of EMA is to just help with day-to-day living. Somehow I don’t see the average student collecting £100 as they pass GO on the benefits Monopoly board carefully rationing it out between days. Go on a boozer more like, that’s probably what I’d do –or buy some unnecessary software.