Good incentive for children (Education Maintence Allowance's (EMA))

Member Name: HitchJo

Product:	Education Maintence Allowance's (EMA)
Date:	06/08/09 (21 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ensures an education

Disadvantages: Needs to be more widely available

Education is a big part in life for everyone. Children these days seem to need the encouragement to learn and the ema provides this for the lower paid families.

At the minuite we are in a recession and there are no jobs unless you are trained in something and the only way that children can achieve this is by staying on at school. The law has just changed that the child will continue at school until they are 18 which is a good thing in my eyes to ensure that they will have a better future than most of us that thought we knew better.

The Ema run a scheme that pays the child upto £30 a week to stay at college or school after the age of 16. I was able to claim this when I left school and attended college for a year. This will be paid to any child that their parents are on an income lower than £32000 a year but the more that they earn the less the money is that is paid to the child.

The money is to help them buy the supplies that they need for the course they are doing. I thought this was good because it gave you a sence of responsibility and helped you grow up and ready for the real world. Due to my mother being a single parent this also helped her out alot because she couldn't afford to buy me the things that I needed for my course. I was doing a legal typing course and had to buy lots of paper, books, discs, etc and this money came in very useful.

At the end of each term I received £50 bonus money for going to lessons everyday which was for my own personal use that usually got used for the course in some way or another.

The Ema office monitor the money that they are paying by making every pupil get a time sheet signed by the tutors that are teaching them to prove they are attending and then once signed they have to be sent off by the main course tutor before they are paid any money. This is good because they have to be in the lessons to get them signed so they can not skip the learning and get paid for nothing which will give any parent peice of mind where their child is and what they are doing. It also prepares the child for working life getting them used to having to do things that they may not want to but have to.

I think the only problem with this scheme is that it is not available to every child due to an earning band, this should be more widely available to give every child the responsibility of growing up and managing money.

This money can be abused with some children who will use it for personal gain in other ways but their education but they then still have to find the money to provide the supplies for their course which is harder than they think so many will work this out a few weeks after they have abused it slightly. It will happen with most or even all children because they have never learnt the true value of money until they have to manage it themselves.

Overall this is a good scheme and helps children alot and will also help the parents financially, it just needs to be more widley available to teach all children how to grow up.

Summary: Great incentive to help children gain a better future.