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Coventry City Council

Question: Is EMA going to be scrapped in Coventry?

Asked by ourchoicecanley to Ed, Jim, Lynnette, Rae on 13 Oct 2010 in Categories: .

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  • Photo: Jim O'BoyleJim O'Boyle answered on 13 Oct 2010:

    Under this government nothing would surprise me. Educational Maintenance Allowance was introduced to encourage young people to stay in education which in turn will help them and the economy in the long term. Contrast this with when I was younger….and believe me this is true. Under the last Tory government I qualified for supplementary benefit because I did less than 12 hours a week at school when I was in the 6th Form. If you did more hours and studied more you didn’t get the payment. And my mum lost my child allowance. In other words I was paid not to go to school or stay in education! Compare that with what Labour introduced – EMA.

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  • Photo: Ed RuaneEd Ruane answered on 13 Oct 2010:

    I understand the EMA was brought in originally as an incentive to ensure more children stayed on in further education after 16, however the Government have plans to raise the leaving age from 16 to 18 on a compulsory basis, so the incentive for 16 year olds to stay on in education is not there as it would be compulsory.

    However, I would argue that it should remain as the EMA is there to help more children from lower income backgrounds to stay on in education and not be financially restricted in developing their education.

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  • Photo: Rachel LancasterRachel Lancaster answered on 13 Oct 2010:

    All benefits are under review and will be changed under new government proposals the the white paper entitled “21st century welfare”. They want to introduce a universal credit to replace most benefits. You can feed back your thoughts online to the government just type in “21st century welfare” into your search engine.

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  • Photo: Lynnette KellyLynnette Kelly answered on 13 Oct 2010:

    I haven’t heard of any plans to scrap it. I don’t think it would be our decision, I think it’s the government that decides on EMA. I think it would be wrong to scrap it, because it does help young people to stay in learning, either at school or at college – decisions about your education and training should be made on the basis of what your interests are and what you are good at, not on how much money you have.

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