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Research Findings No.6/2002
Enterprise and Lifelong Learning:

Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs)
Evaluation of the East Ayrshire Pilot

Linda Croxford, Cathy Howieson, Cristina Lannelli and Jenny Ozga
Centre for Educational Sociology, University of Edinburgh

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Main findings

• EMA increases participation in post-compulsory education. EMA has increased overall participation in post-compulsory education in East Ayrshire by 7 percentage points.
• Increase in participation is most significant among young people from low income families who were the target group for EMAs. Their participation increased by 9 percentage points.
• EMA increases educational retention. The number of winter leavers was reduced, and S5 completions increased. Improved retention is most evident among young people from low-income families.
• There is as yet no conclusive evidence of the impact of EMA on attainment.
• At present the Learning Agreement focuses more on attendance than encouraging effort and raising attainment.
• The requirement for 100% attendance is problematic; local authorities, schools and colleges need more discretion to allow for unavoidable, unplanned absence.
• The evaluation concludes that the policy has been a success. As one school pupil put it: 'If I hadn't got an EMA I'd have left school and I'd probably be living with my father. The set up at home is difficult... and there's lots of arguments about money. My attendance has improved and I'm working harder. I've stayed on because I hope it helps me get a better job if I have more qualifications'

What young people and their parents told us about the effect of EMA

Young people who received the EMA payment and stayed on at school say that it helped them to stay on, that it was a 'bonus' that motivated them to work harder and gave them a 'better outlook' on school. Many of these young people would probably have stayed on anyway, but the payment made this a more positive decision. There were some who could not have afforded to stay on without it.

The EMA is clearly meeting a need. In some cases, it works exactly as it is intended, providing an incentive and a reward that makes staying on an easier choice and that encourages work towards qualifications. One school pupil explained that the EMA had changed her attitude to school; she now works hard to achieve her targets and to get a bonus payment, whereas before she had the EMA she ' couldn't be bothered, but now I have targets'. This young woman cared for two disabled parents, could not take part-time work because she was needed at home, and found the EMA money a great help to her:

'It gives me some money that I can use even if its just to get the shopping: before that I couldn't go out at all and its good to go out sometimes'

Parents were unanimous in their support for the EMA and agreed that it had helped their child to stay on:

'Getting the EMA probably did make a difference to Fiona staying on; at least she probably would have stayed on but she would have needed to look for a part-time job to support herself and she wouldn't do as well.'

'The EMA has helped Gavin to stay on. It was doubtful if he'd stay on after S4. He's quite immature for his age and I was pushing him to stay on to give him a bit more time to mature and the EMA helped to get him to agree because he'd have a little bit of money of his own'.

The Design and Delivery of the EMA Policy

The EMA is aimed at young people from disadvantaged backgrounds who are less likely to stay on in full time education, and who are at risk of being excluded from participation in lifelong learning opportunities. It provides them with an incentive to remain in education and so improve their chances of getting qualifications that will help them to progress to further or higher education and to secure employment. The EMA payment, made directly to the young person, can be seen as a substitute wage that enables the young man or woman to contribute to household costs and to support their learning and leisure activities without placing further pressure on stretched family budgets. As well as a financial benefit, the EMA is intended to improve motivation, commitment and possibly attainment because young people who receive the EMA sign up to the terms of the Learning Agreement which requires regular attendance, responsible behaviour and work to achieve learning targets agreed with the school/college. The East Ayrshire LA is very committed to the policy and has worked hard to ensure high take up of EMA. LA administrators are convinced that the policy has improved staying on rates and raised levels of aspiration for education that contribute effectively to attacking what they feel is a cycle of deprivation and low expectations in the area.

Eligibility for EMA is assessed by the Local Authority, which, in the East Ayrshire case, built on experience of processing bursary applications. In assessing eligibility, the Local Authority, in accordance with the policy guidelines, requires details of the income of the natural parents, rather than household income, unlike assessment for the Bursary. Some pupils and their parents and step-parents have found this intrusive and suggest that it can lead to unfair outcomes.

Monitoring Attendance

The East Ayrshire Local Authority originally interpreted the attendance requirement more generously than did the Scottish Executive, and for the first two years of the EMA's operation used cumulative attendance over the year, not 100% attendance in each week. Adherence to the 100% attendance rule requires constant adjustments to payment levels. Payments are made for two-week periods, so if a young person is absent the Local Authority has to deduct money from payments already made. Young people can claim for reimbursement if they can prove that an error has been made in their attendance record. Errors in College attendance records may arise because of the complex and individualised timetables that college students follow. It is also quite difficult to avoid disputes occurring between pupils, schools and the authority where information about authorised absence or corrections to attendance records does not get into the system quickly enough to avoid stoppages of payments. The Local Authority, the schools and the college involved in the evaluation, as well as and the young people and their parents, would prefer a 90% attendance rule, in order to allow for unavoidable absences, without the demotivating effect of losing money, and without the administrative 'hassle' involved in monitoring 100% attendance. The evaluation suggests that the 100% attendance rule is costly in terms of administrative time in schools and colleges. It also produces disputes about stoppages, which young people perceive as unfair, and which are unhelpful in building a strong commitment from the young person to the school or college. College staff, in particular, saw the rule as ' far too strong' for their students, who often had difficult and changeable domestic circumstances, or childcare and other family commitments that could disrupt attendance. The evaluation concluded that it may be more cost-effective to relax the rule and allow more local authority and school or college discretion to allow for unavoidable, unplanned absence.

The Learning Agreement

The Learning Agreement is not intended to be just about improving attendance, but represents a contract between the school or college and the young person and their parents that commits them to working hard towards agreed learning targets. The evaluation suggests that schools and colleges tend to see the Learning Agreement as about monitoring attendance, but do not really use it as a way of encouraging effort and raising attainment. Young people also think about the Learning Agreement as being concerned with attendance requirements, and they are not well-informed about the bonus payments that they could qualify for if they meet their achievement targets. The tendency to see EMAs as much the same as existing bursary schemes-which is shared by parents, school staff, LA staff and pupils-may reduce the potential of the Learning Agreement as a way of developing commitment to greater effort and thus raising attainment.

There is also some concern among school and college staff that young people in receipt of EMA should not be singled out for special treatment in the institution or in class. There is concern that there should be no stigma attached to receiving the EMA. It is clear that, teachers do not publicly use the incentive of qualification for a bonus EMA payment, nor do they publicly threaten its removal for absence of effort. Such a public reference to the EMA is seen as contrary to an inclusive ethos in schools and colleges.

The evaluation of the East Ayrshire pilot produced similar findings to the large-scale evaluation of the EMA in England. There, too, there was an EMA-effect on retention and participation, but no firm evidence of impact on attainment. The focus on attendance in the interpretation of the learning Agreement may contribute to this finding in East Ayrshire. However it is also possible that improvements in attainment linked to the EMA policy are developing: but that it is too early in the life of the policy for that impact to be clearly identified.

About the Evaluation of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) Pilot in Scotland

The evaluation was undertaken by the Centre for Educational Sociology (CES), University of Edinburgh, for the Scottish Executive Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Department.

The main aims, and the research questions they gave rise to, were:

• To assess the impacts of EMA
  To what extent has EMA led to increased participation in post-compulsory education, over and above the impact of Higher still and changes in labour market and training opportunities? Has it increased retention and attainment?
• To explore issues of administration and delivery
  Is EMA well-publicised and understood? Are application procedures accessible? Are there difficulties in monitoring attendance?
• To explore the effect of EMA on young people's attitudes
  How important is EMA in the decision to stay on at school, or go to college? Does EMA encourage young people to work harder?
• To explore how the EMA is used
  What do young people do with the money? Do they contribute to the household budget?

The following methods of data collection were used:

• A postal survey of young people in East Ayrshire (the pilot) and Lanarkshire (for comparison)
• A review of existing data on educational achievement, school characteristics and local area characteristics
• Analysis of documents on EMA produced by East Ayrshire, and interviews with EMA administrators
• Analysis of documents on EMA produced by schools and colleges and interviews with school/college staff
• Interviews with pupils in receipt of EMA in two schools
• Interviews with young people not in education or employment, and not in receipt of EMA

The survey sample was drawn from all 9 schools in East Ayrshire matched with 9 schools from North and South Lanarkshire. The target sample was all young people who completed the S4 stage in these schools in 1998-9, 1999-2000, and 2000-2001. The final response rate, boosted by telephone interviews, was 30%, with 2715 responses in all. A weighting system was constructed to correct for non-response bias. Information on local area deprivation, on family background and on courses completed by pupils in the sample was collected. Statistical models were used to identify the effect of EMA after controlling for other variables such as prior attainment, gender and family income.