To what extent did the introduction and withdrawal of Education Maintenance Allowance affect my area of practice and what context led to the policies implementation and subsequent removal.
'Around a quarter of young people view finance as a constraint when deciding what to do after Year 11' (Spielhofer et al: 2010, p.44)
This quote is taken from the Department of Education's report: Barriers to participation in education and training published in June 2010, several months before the Coalition Government went on to withdraw the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) scheme following the 2010 spending review.
In this essay the policy in question will be outlined, the historical context in which it was implemented and withdrawn will be addressed; it is difficult to evaluate the withdrawal of a policy without understanding the ideological perspectives of the governments involved; there will also be a discussion surrounding the quantitative results of the policies implementation, those published since its withdrawal and a brief assessment of literature that surrounds the issue.
Policy Implementation & Withdrawal
The policy was introduced in September 2004 (DofE). It was initially piloted by fifteen Local Education Authorities (LEAs) and then onto a further forty-one areas across the country (The Education Maintenance Allowance (Pilot Areas)(Amendment) Regulations 2003) prior to the national implementation. There was extensive piloting of the scheme which led to the relatively long period of time between it's proposal and it's implementation. There were a number of issues that were refined as a result of this process most notably the application process was simplified, a request was made for a tailored administrative computer system and revision of Department of Education and Employment guidelines (Maguire et al, 2001).
In it's final form the policy was a means tested conditional cash transfer (CCT) benefit. Those eligible received an allotted amount...