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Notes to News Editors

1. These statistics are collected by the Scottish Government from local authorities (school pupils) and the Scottish Funding Council (further education college students).

2. EMAs were introduced across Scotland from August 2004 for 16 year olds. In academic year 2005-2006 eligibility was extended to include all 17 year olds and in academic year 2006-2007 eligibility was further extended to include 18 year olds. Full roll out to 19 year olds was completed in 2007-2008. To satisfy the age criteria to receive EMA from August 2007, students had to be born between 1st March 1991 and 30th September 1991. Students born between 1st October 1991 and 28th February 1992 became eligible to join the programme in January 2008.

3. Education Maintenance Allowances are means tested payments of £10, £20 or £30 per week to young people attending school or further education college on a full time basis. EMA aims to increase participation in school and college by 16-19 year olds from low income families.

4. Following satisfactory attendance and completion of a learning agreement, additional bonus payments of £150 are payable in January and June.

5. Prior to national roll-out in August 2004, the EMA scheme was tested in 4 local authority areas (East Ayrshire, Glasgow, Dundee and West Dunbartonshire) As a result, the whole age range in the pilot areas have already been eligible since 2004-2005. An evaluation of the pilots is available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/37432/0010162.pdf and http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/37432/0010161.pdf

6. The analysis of students on the EMA scheme from the 15% most deprived areas of Scotland in this release uses the 2006 Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation ( SIMD): http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/Overview

7. The method of collating the further education college data has been improved to address the issue of more than one record being created for certain students, for example if they have moved college during the academic year. Insufficient information was available in previous years to implement these changes.. The improvements have removed about 1,300 duplicate records this year.

8. Direct comparisons between the academic year 2007-2008 and previous publications are affected by these changes as follows:

• Data from schools can be compared directly and such a comparison is shown in tables 12 and 13 of this release.
• The college statistics, and therefore tables containing information on both school and college students, published last year cannot be compared directly with this publication. However Table 11 of this publication shows counts for both years, using last year's method.

9. Section 5 of this publication contains corrected versions of the tables on students from deprived areas included in last year's release. These corrections account for errors which were picked up during quality assurance. The main sources of error were incorrect coding of male and female further education college students, and the inclusion of further education college students who were not part of the EMA scheme for the entire academic year. The former did not affect the overall total but the latter did, the correction of which resulted in a decrease by almost 1,100 in the number of students. School information was not affected by these errors, though an improvement to the data resulted in a difference of less than 10 pupils in the overall total.

10. This is a National Statistics publication. National Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference.

11. This news release, together with associated tables listed above, is published on the Scottish Government website at the following address: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Lifelong-learning/Publications

12. The publication tables and analysis by local authority for school pupils can be found at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Lifelong-learning/datasets

13. Additional information on Education Maintenance Allowances in Scotland can be found at: http://www.emascotland.com/

For further information ( non-media), enquiries and comments on this release, please contact:

Debbie Amabile

Tel. (0141) 242 0271
Fax. (0141) 242 5455
E-mailfhestatistics@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

For media enquiries please contact:

Ashley Duff

Tel. (0131) 244 3070
E-mail:CommunicationsEducationAndLifelongLearning@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

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