Brilliant article. I hate this argument that if kids aren’t spending their money on textbooks and pencil cases then they shouldn’t have it. I worked part-time at college, and the majority of the money I earnt sure as hell didn’t get spent on those things. The kids whose parents gave them huge amounts of pocket money spent most of it on ketamine, as far as I can tell, and no-one berated them for it. Since when did spending money on leisure pursuits become something only rich people are allowed to do?
Although I would add that lots of the kids I knew on EMA spent the majority of it travelling into college – I went to a 6th form outside of London, where train fares are staggering. That’s something that tends to get overlooked, as a favourite argument is “but teh busses are free, they don’t need travel money!!!11″

Also, hope everyone comes along to the protest today – 4pm @ Picadilly Circus!

How hard is it to get part-time jobs at the moment? Genuine question.

When I was at college most people I knew there had a Saturday or Sunday job (or evening jobs in the week), even though their parents were well-off.

“I hate this argument that if kids aren’t spending their money on textbooks and pencil cases then they shouldn’t have it.”

I think the objection is that taxpayers’ money rather than their parents’ own money is funding these leisure pursuits. Taxpayers are more likely to favour funding education than nights out on the town.

Is there any spending you won’t defend?! I totally oppose the EMA; it’s not taxpayers’ job to give pocket money to teenagers! Your claim that it reduces youth unemployment demonstrates how the Left uses alternative categories – supposed education, incapacity benefit, etc – to create the illusion of low unemployment. Even if this statistical trick was desired it’s not clear that the annual £500m EMA bill is the most effective way of reducing statistical unemployment – most claimants would have attended sixth form anyway – and so you must measure the cost for all EMA versus the cost of Jobseekers Allowance for those few EMA caused to stay at school. EMA works out crazily expensive as a statistical trick! (And the leaving age is rising to 18 anyway soon, so why bribe what’s compulsory?).

There’s also the issue of opportunity cost. Is this the best use for £500m a year? Would you cut £500m elsewhere to introduce it? No. No.

@Elly

“Since when did spending money on leisure pursuits become something only rich people are allowed to do?”

Why can’t their parents give them that money? Why can’t they earn it? Why should they just be given it by the state? Why not give everyone in the country, regardless of age or background, £30 a week for “leisure pursuits”?

@Dave Osler

“But if they left school at 16, many of them would not be earning. In other news today, it emerged that one in five of all Britons aged 16 to 24 out of work. I don’t know what the cost of state support for jobless youth is, but at a guess, EMA is absolute bargain.”

So you admit EMA is merely a measure to keep down youth unemployment figures? Rather than actually deal with the problem of people not being educated enough at 16 to find jobs, just give them £30 a week so they turn up at school, sign in for attending, and then waste the money elsewhere: as long as they’re not on the dole, it doesn’t matter to Dave, I suppose. All the EMA does is defer the problem of youth unemployment to when these people leave college or uni. That is what has happened: Labour brought in EMA to defer this problem, and conveniently it’s someone else who has to deal with it.

I am slightly confused.

If there are no jobs to go to, then what is the incentive to leave school, even if the EMA goes?

Dave,
this seems quite odd: Clearly £30 quid a week isn’t enough to live on, so the internal discussion ‘can’t go to college because I need to work – oh no now I have the EMA so now I can’ can’t be going on.

If the cash is being spent on general living rather than costs specific to study, then it’s hard to see how the EMA functionally incentivises students to choose college over the other options (especially – as you point out – the other options being a bit thin on the ground, to say the least).

This begs the question – what is the EMA actually achieving ? What percentage of the student body wouldn’t be there if the EMA was withdrawn ? Some hard numbers would be useful – if, as claimed, 90 % of students would not change their decisions to study if the EMA was withdrawn, then wouldn’t the cash be better spent on the remaining 10 %, or even those who currently aren’t even considering further education after 16 ?

Ultimately, if we are saying that the only way to motivate a certain sector of society into further education is to pay them, isn’t that a sad indictment of our society in general ?

Expect more crime and layabout kids. Short term thinking for long term pain.

1:56 pm, January 19, 20115. Bourgeois

The EMA is an incentive to stay on in education. I thought the Tories liked cash incentives?

8 – The implication is that EMA is Danegeld to stop children breaking the law or wasting their time. Children shouldn’t require a monetary incentive to behave themselves and get out of bed in the morning.

The kids whose parents gave them huge amounts of pocket money spent most of it on ketamine, as far as I can tell, and no-one berated them for it. Since when did spending money on leisure pursuits become something only rich people are allowed to do?

I’ve no particular opposition to EMA (I’d have to have a damn good reason to oppose it, actually (otherwise I’d a right sod – I got it for a bit)) but it’s hard to equate it with pocket money. Parents choose to give their spawn allowances; taxpayers don’t choose to fork out for other people’s. And I’m not sure having money for “leisure pursuits” is something I’ll be wedging into a social contract anytime soon. I’m all for people have the opportunity to flourish as autonomous, creative individuals but I’m not sure fags and booze, much as I enjoy them, cover it.

fantastic! an argument for keeping ema which doesn’t try and pretend that it’s not usually just spent on the sorts of things that teenagers want to spend their money on.

of course, that’s exactly why it should be scrapped. the notion of the state handing out a pocket money bribe for people to stay in education is preposterous at the best of times. if someone is only bothering with college because of a £30 p/w bribe then there is clearly a problem there that neither the ema nor college education are likely to fix.

if someone cannot be motivated to go to college and develop the skills for employment then, to be honest, i’d rather they went straight to the dole rather than waste space (and money) sitting in college classes that they’re in for the wrong reason. instead of blindly defending ema, why isn’t your focus on doing something about the failed education system which means that ema is required in the first place?

i passionately believe in further education and our colleges – i think that they are much undervalued by society and should be deemed every bit as important as universities. i also think we should be doing a lot more to get young people to undertake a college education… but it should be because they really want to be there… otherwise what’s the point? there comes a point in life where a person has to choose to be educated, not have educated forced upon them – be that by carrot or by stick.

i hope that the government is going to stick to its word and put some of the ema savings back into the system for the benefit of those students who genuinely need support to enable them to learn… but if students want booze and iphones then they can do what everyone did prior to 2004 and either get a job or go without.

the defence of ema seems to me little more than attacking a tory policy for the sake of it.. rather than any kind of rational assessment of the policy.

Sympathise with the point about travel expenses, though: even if it just opens the door to, say, travel allowances

(I shouldn’t have taken an EMA, actually. Still, to be a selfish, mildly irresponsible git at the age of sixteen isn’t too curious an aberration.)

Parents choose to give their spawn allowances; taxpayers don’t choose to fork out for other people’s. And I’m not sure having money for “leisure pursuits” is something I’ll be wedging into a social contract anytime soon. I’m all for people have the opportunity to flourish as autonomous, creative individuals but I’m not sure fags and booze, much as I enjoy them, cover it.

Quite.

why is the idea of the state handing out pocket money as a bribe “preposterous”?

firms hand out (pocket) money to bribe us to do things for them all the time – it’s called a “wage”.

whether it’s worth doing or not has to do with costs and benefits. I was under the impression (from IFS), that wasteful though it is many cases, it does enough good for the few that really need it for the benefits. That is, on average it produces an increase in attendance at a reasonable cost.

what concerns me is not what the kids spend it on but – and this is anecdotal evidence from teachers – is that EMA is supposed to be conditional on attendance, but in many cases the kids just turn up to get registered then bugger off again. That ought not be tolerated – it should be conditional on genuine attendance. And if the IFS’s conclusions are based on attendance data that is, to all intents and purposes, faked, that’s a worry.

My teacher friend says in her estimation that in 90% of cases the EMA just adds pocket money without producing a beneficial change in behavior, but for some kids it’s a lifeline and the only think keeping them at school. Stick that in your cost benefit calculator and smoke it.

There’s an awful lot of wrong-ness in this thread already, but this @4

“Your claim that it reduces youth unemployment demonstrates how the Left uses alternative categories – supposed education, incapacity benefit, etc – to create the illusion of low unemployment.”

Stands out a mile – it was your arch-heroine ol’ Maggie T who introduced the tactic of watering down unemployment figures by pushing people on to IB etc in the ’80s. As with a lot of things, the rot set in then.

Good article OP.

BTW: Private schools getting charity status gifts them £100 million a year (source) – works out at £500 million over the course of this parliament. So yeah, there are ways to help out students from poorer backgrounds if this government would look at it. (Yes, I know that’s not enough – but more could be done is the point).

Meanwhile, a quick recce of the House of Lords website reveals that peers can claim a flat rate attendance allowance of £150 or £300 – their choice, from what I can gather – just for turning up. That’s £150 or £300 a day, not £30 a week.

If such handouts are good enough for the likes of Lord Taylor of Warwick, they are good enough for those attending jenny50’s comp, too.

“Handouts…” why not have a dig at their subsidised bars and restaurants too? Bound to be better than what the kids on EMA have access to.

Look, the Lords aren’t salaried but sometimes do a better job than MPs. Even if a Lord sat every possible day at the top rate he would have received just* £44,100 for FY 08/09. The point really is that they are supposed to give something in return for this money and very often do. The comparison and the dig seem poor.

(Before anyone jumps on the “just” £44,100 pa, it is a lot of money, but I’m quite sure that Robert Winston could and is earning rather more outside the Lords, and I’m pleased that he does sit in the Lords.)

@5
“Why can’t their parents give them that money? Why can’t they earn it? Why should they just be given it by the state? Why not give everyone in the country, regardless of age or background, £30 a week for “leisure pursuits”?”

Because their parents don’t have the money. Not everyone’s parents has the money to buy them a Porsche or the SWP for their birthday, you know.

@5
“Why can’t their parents give them that money? Why can’t they earn it? Why should they just be given it by the state? Why not give everyone in the country, regardless of age or background, £30 a week for “leisure pursuits”?”

Because their parents don’t have the money. Not everyone’s parents has the money to buy them a Porsche or the SWP for their birthday, you know. And as for jobs, what jobs?

@12

what the hell, I’ll bite:

“if someone cannot be motivated to go to college and develop the skills for employment then, to be honest, i’d rather they went straight to the dole rather than waste space (and money) sitting in college classes that they’re in for the wrong reason.”

Cost of EMA (maximum, remember) = £30 a week. Cost of dole (minimum IIRC) £55 a week. Now I’m no economist but even I can see that the dole seems to be more expensive. Not to mention that unemployed folk are more suseptable to pretty much every negative social factor going (health, crime, access to decent accomodation etc). I’d rather have a well-trained workforce – yes, “bribed” if needs be – than a whole new layer of underclass, thanks.

Also: EMA has only been going for a few years, right? So how can anyone draw proper conclusions from its implementation yet? Another example of ideology trumping evidence-based policy making by this most right-wing of governments, methinks.

Private schools getting charity status gifts them £100 million a year

No it doesn’t. It means that £100 million a year less is taken away from them than might otherwise be. There’s a pretty fundamental difference.

There is another march/demonstration regarding this matter and many other issues on the Saturday 26th-March-2011 at 11:00, begging at/assembly point : Victoria Embankment, London, marching to a rally in Hyde Park.

For further information go to : http://righttowork.org.uk/2010/12/tuc-march-for-the-alternative/

I only show up at work because they “bribe” me with wages… And I’m not telling you how I spend them.

@21

Oh come on, you’re saying exactly the same thing in different language.

24 – no, there really is a difference between giving someone money and taking less of their money away. It’s like arguing that the Government is giving you thousands of pounds a year because food is zero-rated for VAT.

It isn’t the Government’s money.

@ 20: Slight error in my last comment, meant to say beginnig at / assembly point. My apologies for that error.

@25

So if the government suddenly introduced rules that it wouldn’t tax people’s incomes if they worked for, say, banks, you wouldn’t consider that a gift-in-kind?

Being generously permitted to keep one’s own money – much as you might wish it all belonged to the state – is not a “gift”.

@28

Fine, we know in your ideal world there would be no tax whatsoever, but surely you can see that in the here-and-now, where we do exist with a policy of taxation that is broadly agreed by all parties, a tax concession is effectively a gift? And “charity status” for private schools quite a profitable one?

I’m old enough to remember the last Tory government’s attempt to tackle youth unemployment; the Youth Training Scheme, even today those of us who went through it don’t talk fondly about the experience.

We were young certainly, but we weren’t being trained in anything apart from sweeping up and feeling resentful, but hey, it kept the unemployment figures down.

EMA on the other hand does, however much it costs, give young people the chance to learn skills and gain qualifications, saving money in the long run since they’ll be able to get better jobs.

That the current government, which by the way contains more people who inherited their fortunes than that of Harold Macmillan, wants to scrap it says everything you need to know about their arrogance, lack of economic common sense and dislike of seeing anyone but their own get on.

The system’s flawed though. While I was attending school I lived with my mother and stepfather. Collectively their income wouldn’t have qualified me for EMA, but because they don’t count stepfathers, I would have been elligible for EMA. So I understand. Anyway I never applied though because I’d have felt bad that the money would be used for inessential things by a person who never really needed it. There’s a fiscal conservative in me somewhere…

Fine, we know in your ideal world there would be no tax whatsoever, but surely you can see that in the here-and-now, where we do exist with a policy of taxation that is broadly agreed by all parties, a tax concession is effectively a gift?

No, because we don’t think it is the state’s to “give”. I can see how you think it is a gift if you think all money belongs to the state in the first place. But if it doesn’t belong to the state, what does the state have to gift?

Children whose parents are on low incomes or benefits get free school meals whilst at school. As soon as they leave school and go to either sixth form or FE college this provision stops.

I keep hearing anecdotes about middle class kids wasting EMA on booze and cigs. Because obviously anecdotes are *so* helpful and not at all ideologically driven.
Children who receive free school meals are the poorest in the country, their parents are living on a very tight budget. How are they going to provide lunch for their kids? Where is the extra tenner or so a week going to come from?

I keep hearing about Oyster Cards for travel, there’s a whole world outside of London, a whole world with no Oyster Cards, no tubes, no trains and shitty bus timetables.

Not all Local Authorities provide adequate travel concessions. Not all schools have sixth forms, some kids will be travelling miles from their old comps to do A Levels or vocational courses.

In the late 80s and early 90s kids who went on YT schemes were paid £29.50pw to do training courses. Twenty years later this government begrudges kids just 50 pence per week more? And some of you support this? YUCK. Not all of these kids will be doing A Levels, some will be training as joiners, plumbers, childcare assistants, hair stylists. Why the hell don’t we have 50p a week more to give them than we did under John Major?!

London-centric middle class right wing zealots have no business dictating to poor kids in the rest of the country.

29 – what ukliberty says. Now, if this were a proposed change in the existing tax law to give a tax break to a sector then I can see the argument that this is a ‘gift’ – although taking less money from someone remains very different from giving them money – but some goods and services have always been zero-rated for VAT. That’s not a gift, any more than the Government gives you 20p every time you buy a loaf of bread.

@32

I refer you to my question @27.

(BY THE WAY: no, I don’t think the state should own everybody’s money. I do think that the rich should pay their way & help out the less fortunate. If we’re playing spot the difference, there’s one for you.)

20
Good point and I’d like to expand – why would kids go to college for a max of £30 per week when they could get £55 per week on the dole for staying in bed and doing nothing except the odd interview
Perhaps our free-market buffs could answer that one,
But IMHO it strikes me that those who receive the benefit are interested in furthering their job prospects through education otherwise they would take the easy option which pays more.

@15

it’s preposterous because it’s other peoples money, and it’s money that was taken from them by force of law, and if 90% of ema is ineffective then it is very poor value for money.

unlike the government, i’d have no problem spending £500m on support to enable people to attend college where they would otherwise be unable to. but.. this scattergun approach is wrong. it’s fine syaing that it’s worth it because of the 10% that do benefit.. but a properly funded and better targetted system could benefit those 10% more and/or benefit many other people for whom ema is not enough to enable them to learn.

i’ve seen no detail on the proposed replacement. i expect it won’t be very good.. but that’s what people should campaign about… not holding onto ema as it is.

@20

yes, ema is cheaper the unemployment benefit – but educating someone in a college isn’t free, and having someone in college who isn’t there because they have a desire to learn can also be very disruptive.

i was, of course, being somewhat flippant. i want people in college, not on the dole… but i don’t think we should bribe people to get them there.

@34

And there’s a world of difference between the £100 million I’m talking about that could easily be retrieved with relevent legislation and 20p on a loaf of bread.
A semantic argument is quibbling anyway – the point remains there are options for funding EMA if the gov wanted to.

35 – I think it’s a language point. I don’t see the fact that the Government could tax me more but don’t as a gift. They could pass a law confiscating the property of all blue-eyed people called Tim. The fact that they haven’t doesn’t mean that they’ve gifted me all my property.

More seriously, the Govt could introduce a requirement that all maths and economics teachers pass the FSA exams. The fact that they haven’t is certainly a very substantial saving to private schools. It’s hard to see that it’s a gift though.

And there’s a world of difference between the £100 million I’m talking about that could easily be retrieved with relevent legislation and 20p on a loaf of bread.

Yes, the Government would raise vastly more if they applied VAT to food. Easy to retrieve too. It’s a perfect analogy with VAT on school fees – the application of VAT to goods and services that are currently (and have always been) zero-rated.

@40

Everybody eats. Not everybody uses private education.

41 – so? The merits of applying VAT to private education (which I would be against anyway, and would cite among other things the far greater sum ‘saved’ to the state by children not being educated within the state system than ‘lost’ by not applying VAT to fees) is irrelevant to whether not paying tax is or is not a gift.

Certain goods and services are zero-rated for VAT. That doesn’t mean the Govt gives you money for buying them.

@32
What is the state for? Does it exist — as so many right-wing ‘libertarians’ think – solely to protect capital? If that is the case, then the kind of state that you and your brethren envisage is one where all the repressive apparatuses are left in place. Because that is what a ‘smaller’ state would look like.

@42

“So?” < You're comparing apples and oranges. Actually, you're comparing some apples that a few very wealthy people can afford, and the oranges that everybody, regadless of income, require.

We can bat back and forth all day over the meaning of tax and/or gift, the point remains that slashing EMA is not an essential part of the deficit reduction programme & there are other – I’d argue more equitable – ways of achieving the same.

I believe this government to be motivated by sheer ideology and this cut is the thin end of what will end up being a rather large wedge.

37
But why would you choose to pay the unemployment rate of £55 per week rather than EMA at £30, UB costs more and is still paid for by forced taxation.

@44

it’s funny to hear the government accused of spending decisions based on ideology… as if everyone else is capable of putting ideology to one side and only ever making decisions based on cold, hard, FACTS!

of course there’s ideology behind cutting ema… but there was ideology behind creating it… you (presumably) just happen to subscribe to it. left and right are as bad as each other (and here am i, amused, sitting on the fence eating biscuits).

It’s completely laughable that people here are justifying this on cost/benefit grounds when the banks have been bailed out to the tune of 700 billion.

It is true afterall that ideology is most powerful when it is accepted as inevitable – i.e. when it is not seen as ideology at all.

And as to whether children are “deserving” of the EMA or not – outside of EMA children have money or do not have money based on the lottery of who’s birth canal they had the fortune/misfortune to drop out of. Now in the eyes of you bourgeois this may itself render one deserving or undeserving – that a child’s lot in life should be determind entirely by their parents’ wealth.

For some of us though, when billions of pounds are being shirked and avoided in already miniscule taxes for the rich – aka looters – of this country, the notion of taking £30 away from poorer kids is little more than hateful ‘let them sink’ ideology that Tories are so fond of.

And to call it a bribe!

What do you suppose are the payments for the millions who turn up to their call-centre jobs in our ‘service economy’ every day? You think they do this for fun?

And last but perhaps most importantly THERE ARE NO FUCKING JOBS.

47 – I’ve long believed that one of LibCon’s greatest failings is the absence of a green ink font.

@45

because it’s not about the money. i’m not looking for the lowest priced way to deal with young people (and some would argue that labour were, when ema was introduced).

colleges are for education. education is something that people should want to be a part of. by the time people hit 16 they should have made a conscious choice that they want to learn things and develop skills to enable them to get on in life. if they haven’t yet made that choice then college is the wrong place for them – and maybe that extra £25 a week is worthwhile to keep those people away from the people who HAVE chosen to learn. colleges cost money to run and have limited resources – surely they are best used only on people who are there for the right reasons?

most teachers will tell you that the biggest problem they have is disruptive students who ruin things for everyone. let’s not bribe those peopole to linger around any longer than they need to.

“colleges are for education. education is something that people should want to be a part of. by the time people hit 16 they should have made a conscious choice that they want to learn things and develop skills to enable them to get on in life.”

That’s the point – many do want to but cannot because of financial issues. You sound awfully like someone who’s never had any financial problems – as if the entire choice of going to college exists outside of financial worries.

In 1992 16 and 17 year olds got £29.50 pw to train as bricklayers, nursery nurses and plasterers under John Major’s government. David Cameron wants kids from the same areas, same kind of families to do the same for nothing.

YTS used to take kids who didn’t want to, or couldn’t do A Levels and give them practical skills, the 2 year courses gave them Level 2 qualifications (NVQs etc, equivalent of 5 GCSEs) If they were lucky and got taken on as proper staff after the 2 years they could, employers willing, continue training and achieve a Level 3, Level 3 was classed as “supervisory level.”

There were a lot of things wrong with Youth Training Schemes, the biggest was firms using kids as free labour, turfing them out after the 2 years and getting a new crop of YTS kids in. I’m in no way painting the thing as a shining example of training, though for some it did work and worked brilliantly, if they were lucky enough to get taken on by a company with ethics.

Now if kids want to train to do these kind of jobs they have to go to their local FE college, often they do “day release” 3 or 4 days pw at college and 1 day “in the community” perhaps training with a local council or firm. There are precious few apprenticeships these days.

At present these young people will, family circumstances allowing, get 10, 20 or 30 pounds pw to pay for their lunch, course materials, travel, not only to college but also to their 1 day community training.

When people debate EMA they are hung up on A Levels “too many kids going to Uni anyway” they are hung up on London travel systems “well they get subsidised Oyster Cards anyway” they are hung up on their blinkered, pampered middle class views of the world.

Day after day I see 30 odd year old, childless, degree educated, middle class fellas waffling on against EMA. WTF?!

@50

i’ve stated, fairly unambiguously, that i want ema replaced with something that will provide support to those who need it. the reason i commented on this particular article in the first place was that it was the first leftist piece i’d seen that had the honesty to admit that most ema is ineffective.

now then, as you know absolutely nothing about my personal background, or the absolutely staggering difference that £30 p/w would have made to me and my family when i was doing a-levels, i suggest you refrain from jumping to wild conclusions.

“As I’ve stated, fairly unambiguously, that i want ema replaced with something that will provide support to those who need it”

How will you decide whether a person “needs it or not” then? Deserving and undeserving poor, is it?

I also did not notice you clamouring to tell the city bankers who were bailed out how you think they should spend their tax subsidies.

buddyhell,

@32
What is the state for? Does it exist — as so many right-wing ‘libertarians’ think – solely to protect capital? If that is the case, then the kind of state that you and your brethren envisage is one where all the repressive apparatuses are left in place. Because that is what a ‘smaller’ state would look like.

You referred to my comment@32 but you appear to be arguing with something you’ve imagined, not something I wrote or implied.

I do not believe the state ought to exist “solely to protect capital”, but capital is one of many things it ought to protect, unless we have something better suited to protect capital, otherwise I could raid your wealth with impunity.

To attempt to answer your question, “what is the state for?”, it seems to me that on one theoretical level* the state exists to exercise those powers and responsibilities we as a nation have delegated to it that we would find it otherwise difficult or impossible to exercise.

At a very basic level the state exists to protect us from people who would infringe our freedom (from run-of-the-mill criminals to invasion forces) – that’s why we have a criminal justice system and a military. ‘We’ have also decided we would like a state that ‘enhances’ our freedom, so we have a state that provides education and health services, and attempts to provide an environment that makes us happier. And we contribute to the proper running of the state – the exercise of those powers and responsibilities – by paying taxes. And so on.

* I say this because on a different theoretical level all power derives from the Queen-in-Parliament.

@53

what on earth are you on about? i’ve said anything about deserving/undeserving poor, and i’ve certainly not said anything about city bankers.

maintenance support can be means-tested and monitored differently so as to try and cut back on the 90% that is ineffective. city bankers are irrelevant, but i guess it’s impossible to have any kind of dicussion about how public funds are spent without someone dragging these fetid arseholes into it. for what it’s worth, even if we got all the money back from the banks, and taxed all their bonuses at 99%, i still wouldn’t hand out the proceeds to college students who just don’t need state support.

@54

“You referred to my comment@32 but you appear to be arguing with something you’ve imagined, not something I wrote or implied”

Hardly, you wrote:
“No, because we don’t think it is the state’s to “give”. I can see how you think it is a gift if you think all money belongs to the state in the first place. But if it doesn’t belong to the state, what does the state have to gift”?

I don’t think I’ve “imagined” anything. Education should be paid through general taxation – that includes the EMA. What I’m trying to do is get to the discourse.

“To attempt to answer your question, “what is the state for?”, it seems to me that on one theoretical level* the state exists to exercise those powers and responsibilities we as a nation have delegated to it that we would find it otherwise difficult or impossible to exercise”.

That’s an answer. When you say “we as a nation”, what does that mean? I don’t think any of us – as a body politic – have delegated anything to anyone.

“At a very basic level the state exists to protect us from people who would infringe our freedom (from run-of-the-mill criminals to invasion forces) – that’s why we have a criminal justice system and a military. ‘We’ have also decided we would like a state that ‘enhances’ our freedom, so we have a state that provides education and health services, and attempts to provide an environment that makes us happier. And we contribute to the proper running of the state – the exercise of those powers and responsibilities – by paying taxes. And so on”

Does the state “enhance our freedoms”? I don’t think it does and politicians – particularly those of the right – have appropriated the word “freedom” because it suits a particular narrative. As for “happiness”, that’s another word that has recently been conscripted to serve a particular ideological narrative. It’s completely meaningless.

I agree it should be scrapped, plenty of real life students in the news today saying that they waste the money on drink and drugs, I don’t want my tax going to support someone’s drug habit.

But….

Simply replace it with free college meals and transport for those who need it, that way the poorer students can still attend college and tax payers money doesn’t get wasted.

@Vince, and course materials?

Anyone wanting to do hair and beauty at my local college has to fork out for a lot of kit, plus they have to buy the tabards/overalls. They are not provided.

Sports academies make the kids buy a lot of kit too, none of it is provided, same with plastering, joinery courses etc.

Last term my daughter had to go on 3 educational trips, she’s been on 1 already this term and they’ve only been back after the xmas break for a few weeks. All of them had to be paid for-out of her EMA.

Sorry for anecdotes, they are a pet hate of mine, but there you go, just broken my own rule. haha

Jeez, sorry about the smiley emoticon. Didn’t know this site was set up for them. My post now looks like the witterings of a teenager on MSN.

57
Young people can waste unemployment benefit on drink and drugs and as I have previously pointed-out, unemployment benefit is £25 per week more than EMA. Why would anyone who isn’t really interested in gaining an education choose the least benefit, no-one seems to want to answer this question.
Providing free meals and transport may be a good idea but what about the other items required for course-work as @58 refers to.
The fact is, tories really don’t want to educate the children of the poor, keeping an army of cheap reserve labour serves the interest of owners, those with few or no qualifications can be more easily manipulated than those with a good education and they are much cheaper.
Cynical but true.

@ Buddy Hell,

the state exists, as the organised principle of violence, to prey upon society. It likes to dress up in costumes and give itself airs and graces, but don’t let that fool you.

That’s a libertarian answer (but not right wing).

If the function of the EMA is to provide incentives for 16-18 year-old to stay on in education, what will it’s function be when staying on in education becomes compulsory?

Number of people showing awareness of this on the threads here and on your own blog = one

May have missed it but a quick scan showing number of people aware of the fact that 16-18 year olds cannot claim JSA = zero

Number of people who give a shit about the unintended consequences of incentivising people to stay on at school even though they have no interest in learning = one.

No, now you’ve got two.

Number of people writing posts and leaving comments about education in the blogosphere who are actually interested in education enough to do any actual research? I wouldn’t care to make an estimate myself…

@ Shuggy (62)

i feel a fool now for assuming that those who were assuming that ema claimants would qualify for jsa knew what they were on about.

with regards to compulsory education to 18, in theory it actually makes no difference to pro-ema types, as the allowance is supposed to be about covering costs. obviously it’s not usually needed for that, so yes.. this further diminishes the case for ema.

most political blogging and comment seems to be about bashing the other side for whatever they happen to think… the merits of any particular policy are secondary to the badge worn by whoever is supporting it.

@57
“I agree it should be scrapped, plenty of real life students in the news today saying that they waste the money on drink and drugs, I don’t want my tax going to support someone’s drug habit”

But you’re quite happy to allow your taxes to be spent on propping up the banks, as well as the bankers massive cocaine habits? Perspective please.

@64

it’s really unhelpful when cuts opposers keep referencing everything back to the bankers. a policy should be assessed on it’s own merits.

i’d rather taxpayers money be spent on ema than propping up banks, but i’d rather it be spent on propping up banks than going to war in iraq and afghanistan… and i still think ema should go.

62
As I understand it, ema is paid to students of up to 19 years of age whereas jsa becomes payable at the age of 18years, therefore there is one full year whereby ema will be paid to those in education up to 19 rather than jsa. Also, as far as I am aware, the planned compulsory education is to 18 years of age.

@65
It’s fairly typical of those defenders of the government’s policy to resort to words like “denier” or “cuts opposer”. Anyone would think you were trying to control discourse. Surely not?

The banks and your greedy pals got us into this mess and we (especially the poor) are paying for it. Education is an investment in the nation’s future. Perhaps you’d rather those students go and do what?

@65
Perhaps you’d like to tell us why cheap credit was made freely available while most wages were kept down?

It is entirely possible that a lot of the people on both sides of this argument are right.

I don’t think that the state should be doling out a ‘bribe’ or ‘pocket money’ for staying in education. Education is a good in its own right ‘bribing’ people to stay on cheapens it. If young people can’t recognise that then I have very little sympathy for them. I didn’t stay in school past 16 because I was forced to, or because someone bribed me, I stayed in school past 16 because I loved learning, I knew I wanted to go to university, and I knew that education was a good in its own right. I am aware that in the short term I could have had more money by leaving and finding a job, but I understood the concept of delayed gratification.

Concerning whether people need it, of the people I knew who received EMA, the majority treated it like extra pocket money. One of my friends father died, he was the only one who needed EMA to support his family, and arguably

However, there are people who legitimately need EMA, these people should still get support to cover the costs and opportunity costs of continuing education. Ironically, perhaps an expenses system could work.
- Travel costs should be re-imbursed
- Training and equipment costs should be re-imbursed, ie, tools etc if you’re doing vocational training. HOWEVER, for £30 a week I could have bought every book I needed for all my A-Levels several times over, I didn’t need to because they were provided by the school.
- People whose families need their children to go out to work should perhaps have an equivalent to Child Benefit continued while their children remain in education. – Likewise teenaged students who leave home early 16-18 should also probably receive an equivalent living allowance.

These could all be targeted without handing out £30 a week regardless of circumstances.

Concerning whether people need it, of the people I knew who received EMA, the majority treated it like extra pocket money. One of my friends’ father died, he was the only one who needed EMA to support his family, and arguably should have received more support. I have no qualms about removing it from the people who spend it on booze and fags.

@65
Perhaps you’d like to tell us why cheap credit (this includes credit cards) was made freely available while most wages were kept down?

Sorry, just realised that last post was far too long.
Summary:
There’s a split
– EMA as incentive to stay on in education – Bad
– EMA as money to cover costs of staying in education – Good

When people say 90% wasted, they mean that for 90% of recipients the former is true.
It cannot be beyond our capacity to provide the latter without the former.

@68/69

With you all the way here Ed. The concept of supporting those in need to fulfil their educational aspriations seems to be a good thing – though I guess the tricky thing is how to target the needy…..

Rephrasing Lees comment (65) to attempt to avoid antagonising the likes of Buddyhell, would it be possible to debate the *actual* merits of the EMA without reference to other factors, such as bankers ? Presumably it’s not beyond the wit of man to form an opinion on whether the EMA delivers as intended, whether it doesn’t but has positive unintended consequences which renders it useful anyway, or neither of the above and therefore a different approach is required ?

Ultimately, every policy should regularly undergo this kind of scrutiny, whether the nation is as rich as Croesus or collectively asking passing countries to spare any change..

Without wishing to denigrate the good people of LC too much, there seems to be an avoidance of the idea that a current policy might not be delivering and thus needs to change.

69
When I eventually studied for a degree I got a student grant and I never heard it being referred to as an incentive to learn, however, without it I would have been unable to return to full-time education so the reality was that it was an incentive. Perhaps your university years were after grants were abolished, but £30 for all of the books you needed sounds good, I remember that one of mine alone cost more than £30
I certainly laughed at your suggestion that students could be reimbursed for travel expenses and materials, most would be unable to pay for those things in the first place, that’s why they have been granted ema.
Semantics are all very well but how do judge whether a person’s reason for persuing education is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and isn’t that a value judgement anyway?