"Psst - could you live on £30 a week?"

Submitted by Anon on 22 May, 2004 - 10:12

By Ruth Cashman

Anyone who's watched TV or walked past a phonebox recently will be acquainted with the series of adverts produced by the Government to advertise the national launch of Further Education Maintenance Allowances for 16-18 year olds this September. In these works of modernist genius, a private detective-type, badly disguised as a fire hydrant, dinner trolley, etc, leaps out to give unsuspecting 15-year-olds the skinny on the new allowance.
The adverts may not be funny, but you do get the definite feeling that the Government's taking the piss. The only thing you can say about EMAs is that they're better than what went before - ie, nada.

To start with, the maximum allowance is £30 a week, which as the DFES helpfully points out has to cover everything - "books, travel, food, contribution to household costs". Moreover, this princely sum will accrue only to those whose total household income is less than £19,360 a year, which is very slightly more than the amount earned by two parents working full-time on the minimum wage.

Students from households bringing in less than £24,030 (two parents on half the average wage) will get £20, while those whose parents earn less than £30,000 combined will get £10. Those whose combined household income is more than this will get nothing.

Means-testing, which stigmatises poverty, denies cash to those who need it and forces students to be dependent on their parents, is objectionable in principle. The astonishing stinginess of the proposed means-testing regime for EMAs, however, adds insult to injury.

Not content with this, the Government intends to force students who receive an EMA to sign a 'Learning Agreement' with their college, so that the allowance can be withdrawn if students fail to make sufficient 'progress'.

There is nothing wrong with saying that students should attend their classes, but tying financial support to the whim of college bureaucrats is a recipe for persecution. It will mean that, instead of liberating them to enjoy the experience of further education and learn at their own pace, the support system becomes a means of subordinating young people to the needs of government and capital.

So dire is the current situation for Further Education students that EMAs will no doubt significantly improve the lives of a reasonable number of young people. A government really committed to opening up access to education, however, would guarantee every student a decent standard of life by introducing a living maintenance grant in Further Education, available to all (not just 16-18 year olds) without means-testing. It would also restore student access to Housing Benefit and introduce special grants to ensure that academic requirements like travel and books didn't cut into students' income. None of this would come cheap - but why should education be provided on the cheap?

Everyone wants a decent education for themselves and their children, and no one like having to pay through the nose for it. A mass campaign to demand living grants for all, funded by taxing the rich, could tap into a vein of real popular support. That is the demand the student movement must take up regardless of EMAs.

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