Monday 24 January 2011

EMA comment from email

You can almost hear the pupils chanting. What do we want? EMA. When do we want it? Now. The point is that you don't particularly get an unbiased viewpoint about the benefits of EMA if you ask those who are in receipt of EMA. Would you rather have £30 per week or not? The answer is a no-brainer. I gave a brief summary of my thoughts on Wednesday and I added to them on Thursday of last week. Over the weekend I received an email that said I had not considered some of the most critical issues.

One point that was made was that if we don't provide EMAs then less teenagers will continue in education and become ‘NEETs’, teenagers Not in Education, Employment or Training and from here their life chances plummet. The point must surely be that we must support our children to the best of their ability and replacing EMA with better targeting has to be implemented. On its own this is not an argument for keeping EMA. We both agree that a good replacement is required.

They didn't like my idea of giving the money to the parents as this takes away responsibility from the youngster. I am not convinced, for the points that I have already made. It is the family that is assessed as poor not the teenager. I place family cohesion far above student responsibility, and I feel that keeping responsibility with parents would mean more family cohesion and more of the money spent appropriately. This is exactly what happens in families who do not qualify for EMA. "Yes, my son, you can have a new Porsche", but it is the parent who has made the decision not the child.

Change the world.

1 comment:

  1. IF....the EMA was given to me in place of my son I would make sure he used it wisely..as he does anyway..buyin materials to research his subject...ect
    I am also aware that are some families where the student recipient would not even see it...and other families where the parents would just not care how it was used.
    When I did A levels all you got was a one off payment at the start of your two year course!

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