16-19 Participation in education

Written Evidence Submitted by London Borough of Newham, Newvic (Newham Sixth Form College) and Newham College of Further Education

1. What impact has the Education Maintenance Allowance had on the participation, attendance, achievement and welfare of young people and how effective will the Discretionary Learner Support Fund be in replacing it?

1.1. The EMA is massively important for young learners in the London Borough of Newham. Targeted on the poorest students, it has had a significant effect on participation in 16-19 learning, as well as on retention, attendance and ultimately achievement.

1.2. Take-up rate of the EMA is very high in Newham. Around 5000 young people who study here claimed EMA last year – the highest rate in London. This compares to just 900 in Richmond upon Thames. [1] The vast majority of Newham learners claimed the full £30. A single college in Newham alone has over 2,000 EMA recipients, most of them receiving the full £30. [2] It is the highest number in any sixth form college in the country. The exceptionally high claimant rate across Newham indicates that there is a high need in the borough for financial support for young people in further education.

1.3. The government argues that 88% of recipients would have continued to study post-16 irrespective of the money. But Newham’s independent research into education, training and employment for 16-19 year olds indicates that 51% of recipients in Newham said the EMA was an important reason for participation in education post-16.

1.4. Overall participation rates among 16-18 year olds in Newham have increased from 81.4% in 2003/4 to 94.6% in 2009/10. This is an increase of 13.2%. Both the London Borough of Newham and 16-19 providers in Newham believe that the EMA has been a significant factor in driving this increase in participation. Our independent research supports this view.

1.5. We believe the trend towards increased participation could reverse if young people from poor families don’t get the support they need. This could jeopardise the government’s ambitions of Raising the Participation Age to 18.

1.6. Such a move would also come at a very bad time. Growth in the jobs market remains slow and youth unemployment is particularly high. The labour market is also increasingly demanding a higher level of skills. A reduction in participation in 16-19 education would mean more young people entering the jobs market prematurely, with neither the skills they need to succeed, nor the jobs available for them to go into.

1.7. A study by the NUS found that 61% of EMA participants they surveyed said they could not continue in education without the allowance. This rose to 65% for those receiving the full £30. They also found that 40% of the poorest learners said that EMA was not enough to cover their essential costs and that they were more likely to use commercial debt to cover this shortfall [3] .

1.8. This highlights the difficulties of poorer students not just in entering post 16 education but also in staying on to complete their course. The EMA was vital to students from very low income families. It is difficult to quantify all of the EMA’s benefits – in Newham the EMA helped students complete post-compulsory education courses, lessened some of the hardships they and their families faced and tackled some of the disadvantages many of them started out with in terms of low household income and debt.

1.9. In addition to increasing participation, The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that EMA also increases retention. Their evidence shows that those receiving EMA were far more likely to stay on and complete the whole course. [4] EMA also helps contribute to improved attendance as recipients have to attend classes and complete work to receive the allowance. Providers believe this has a significant impact on attendance.

1.10. In terms of attainment, IFS researchers found that in areas where EMA was available, students were around 2 percentage points more likely to reach the thresholds for Levels 2 and 3 of the National Qualifications Framework; they also had A Level grades around 4 points higher (on the UCAS tariff) on average. [5] This is in part because it can also reduce the pressure to get a job whilst studying, which might distract them from their studies, in order to contribute to course costs and household income.

1.11. Newham has had low levels of social mobility in the past. To address a pattern of educational underachievement in the borough and low social mobility, the government must commit to providing young people in Newham a fair chance to succeed post-16 so they can compete with their peers across London.

1.12. EMA can help Newham residents raise their aspirations and exceed expectations despite coming from one of the most deprived boroughs in the country. It is a can help drive social mobility, and support children to get the skills and qualifications they need to succeed in higher education and/or in work.

1.13. The DLSF is available through colleges and school sixth form providers to help with learning costs for those facing financial hardship is a poor substitute for the EMA primarily because of the small amount of money dedicated to it. Support worth £25m is currently provided through DLSF. In London, the budget for this fund for the current year is £4.8million – less than six per cent of last year’s EMA spend of £81.2million. Despite a government pledge to treble the discretionary learner support budget by 2014, this leaves a national shortfall of £480m when compared to the national EMA budget last year of £560million [6] .

1.14. There is a lack of government guidance on both exactly what funding will be available to replace the EMA and how it will be used. This makes it very difficult for providers and local authorities to plan how they can support learners from poor backgrounds in the coming years. The likelihood is that funding for the new system will fall well below the support now available through EMA.

1.15. The 2010 DLSF guidance for providers and local authorities states that the budget "is finite; learners who are eligible for support are not automatically entitled to it" and that providers should offer it if there is "no alternative" [7] . Learners should see the fund as a last port of call after exercising their eligibility for other forms of financial support for example housing benefit or tax credits. Eligibility for the fund will have to change significantly if it is to substitute aspects of the EMA.

1.16. Whereas take-up of the EMA was widespread and came without stigma, we are concerned that the tighter restrictions available on support through the DLSF will dissuade some young people from applying.

1.17. Finally, schools and colleges will set their own eligibility criteria for DLSF and manage their own procedures. This means that the amounts available, and the way funds are allocated, may differ between institutions, creating inconsistency, confusion and unfairness.

1.18. This reflects a wider view that with greater control over skills funding, the host boroughs could ensure a coherent skills offer which matches the needs of current and future employers and residents themselves. If funding and administration was controlled regionally or locally rather than through providers, it would also limit the extent to which perverse incentives might occur amongst providers (dependent on how stringently they offer support to students) as they would have to follow a shared criteria for distribution.

2. What preparations are necessary, for providers and local authorities, for the gradual raising of the participation age to 18 years and what is their current state of readiness?

2.1. Newham is the third most deprived local authority in London, and the sixth most deprived in the country [8] . The evidence above demonstrates that financial support for the poorest students is necessary to ensure they participate and then stay engaged until the end of the course. For young people from poorer backgrounds to have a more equal chance of succeeding in post compulsory education, greater financial support will need to be available than what is currently being proposed in the DLSF. A consistent approach for distributing this support will need to be agreed by providers.

2.2. Delivering the Raising of the Participation Age requires effective and comprehensive financial support for learners from poor backgrounds. It will be impossible to force 18 year olds to take part in education or training. Instead, there needs to be adequate support and incentives to move towards 100% participation.

2.3. The increased hardship some of the poorest students might face in further education could have an adverse effect on their decisions to enter higher education. This effect will be amplified by the rise in tuition fees as young people from poor backgrounds may be put off by the prospect of higher debt on leaving university. In response, more effort and funding needs to be put into widening participation programmes to ensure that all those who want to can go to university are not deterred by the costs. These must be clearly targeted at the poorest students and the poorest areas.

2.4. There is a need to plan for all young people in the borough, not just those who conventionally continue at school or college. This means devoting equal attention to the needs of those whose aspirations are at foundation level as those who undertake level 3. A wide range of options for education and training for young people will do more to engage young people post compulsory schooling. This includes an engaging curriculum, more choice and variety in course options (including apprenticeships) and more tailored and personalised support for young people NEET and those at risk of becoming NEET. Newham has consistently worked hard to reduce its number of NEET young people and has achieved its target to reduce the percentage of 16-18 year olds who are NEET to 6.4% by 2011, in comparison with an average of 9.2% across the country at the end of 2009.

2.5. In addition to supporting young people who are NEET, there is a need to begin a process of engagement with those young people who are in, or likely to opt for, jobs without training since under the RPA proposals such a choice will not be an option after 2013. It is probable that wholly new forms of provision will be needed to meet their needs including working with employers to increase employment with training opportunities,

2.6. There are high levels of studying out of borough, particularly in areas like Newham. This requires close co-operation between neighbouring local authorities. In the same way it will be important to assess the extent of employment opportunities in the wider travel-to-work area around the Borough and know the views of employers in this wider region concerning skill needs and the preparation of young people.

3. The impact of raising the participation age will have on areas such as academic achievement, access to vocational education and training, student attendance and behaviour, and alternative provision.

3.1. We believe that young people would benefit from an array of post-16 provision in schools and elsewhere to help them achieve the higher skills that are increasingly required across the country. The government must ensure that appropriate funding is available not only to incentivise but to enable young people to achieve these skills.

3.2. Young people in Newham have very good rates of participation post 16. The Newham Connexions 2010 Activity Survey (or Destinations Survey) produced headline findings as follows:

o 94.6% of Year 11 leavers entered learning of one type or another, an increase of 0.6% over 2009;

o 94.64% entered FT education or training, an increase from 94.1% in 2009;

o 63% of those remaining in education or training entered a Level 3 Programme;

o 53% of those remaining in education were studying in Newham;

o Only 2.7% (99) were known to be NEET.

3.3. The RPA will impact young people’s attitudes to learning. The findings of the Newham Household Panel Survey (Wave 2 Report D) suggest that attitudes to education and training amongst young people and their parents in Newham are remarkably positive, though there is a clear distinction between the attitudes and aspirations of students from different ethnic groups, with young white students markedly less motivated than their counterparts in other ethnic groups. The government will need to ensure that attitudes and aspirations do not take a negative turn because of a lack of financial support as the research around the importance of the EMA suggests.

3.4. Many of the students who do not currently take part in education or training after 16 will be more challenging than current students. They may have dropped out due to difficulties and bad experiences during compulsory education.

3.5. These students will require extra support in order to achieve decent results and maintain good levels of attendance and behaviour. It will also increase the demand for vocational learning and alternative, non-traditional provision.

3.6. Local authorities need to work closely with providers, with other services and with employers, to ensure that the needs of this small but vital group are met.

28th March 2011