Listening To The Radio Today....
Today Radio Four's Today programme interviewed Polly Toynbee, well-known Guardian writer and President of the BHA, along with Tom Burkard, who has experience of the UK education system (though notably he's got a strong American accent) and is part of an organisation called for Centre for Policy Studies.
They were debating the recent decision to do away with the EMA (Educational Maintenance Allowance i.e. income support for children in their late teens from particularly low income families) as part of the Coalition government's brutal tax cuts. Polly Toynbee was picked because she's a well-known socialist who is obviously going to be wholly against scrapping the EMA. Meanwhile they seem to have picked Tom Burkard because he's the only person they could find with the right background who would be heartless enough to wholly insist on scrapping it.
The interview becomes rather ridiculous towards the end when he's insisting that children from extremely low income families who want to go onto further education (i.e. A Levels, not university) will have no trouble getting part time jobs because his step-daughter found it easy. Still perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised when we see the website for the Centre for Policy Studies, whom he is representing. On that website they happily brag about their connection to the economic liberalism of the Thatcher era. (More recently they are insisting on the vital importance of marriage in society. *groan*)
It feels like the old libertarian thing which allows poor people "the freedom to remain poor", unless they are lucky enough to get the opportunity to pull themselves out of it (which'll be pretty rare).
This is the same Today programme on Radio Four which brought you the interview with Gary McFarlane.Interviewer: There are more student protests today in advance of tomorrow’s vote on tuition fees and it is tuition fees that have captured most of the headlines and attention in previous protests. The people who have reported on these marches have been impressed as well by the number of students whose main concern is the scrapping, in England, of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA). It gives cash up to 30 pounds a week directly to youngsters between the ages of 16 and 19 in low income homes if they continue with their studies after GCSEs and, they say, they need the money.
“If the government should take away the EMA it’s going to really affect most of the students. Some students, they are coming to college because of the EMA. So that is really going to affect their attendance.”
“My family income is really low; I think it’s about 18 pounds a week. So naturally, EMA, that’s over a third [laughing] of my family income so it makes a big difference”
“I can see why they want to save some money for some students who don’t come in, but there are a lot of students who need that and rely on that to get to college and actually do their work.”
Well, the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee is amongst those who think the 500 million pounds a year cost is money well spent and Tom Burkard from the Centre of Policy Studies is less convinced. They are both on the line. Good morning to you both.
Polly Toynbee and Tom Burkard: Good morning.
Interviewer: Polly Toynbee make the case for EMAs.
PT: Well there are about six hundred and sixty thousand teenagers from very low income families who draw the EMA. They go on to schools and colleges, a lot of them are in FE colleges, doing courses of all kinds. Some of them doing A levels, some all kinds of technical qualifications. A lot of them wouldn’t be able to manage it because in colleges, for instance, you get no free school meals. Some of these colleges, you know they have to travel a long way to it and in most places: no bus passes. And thirty pounds a week for families of this low income, will be a huge blow. At the same time a lot of those families are suffering big benefit cuts anyway. Even those who are in work. The IFS, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says the effect is quite substantial. At least 10 % would drop out and the others would certainly suffer a great deal. Another thing about EMAs is that if you don’t turn up on time every single day, for every single class, you don’t do your homework, you lose your EMA for a week. The result of that is colleges are reporting that those on EMA are actually getting better results than those who are not. So, what do we want? Sixty thousand more drop outs, or not?
I: Tom Burkard, it’s targeted, it helps those who need help and it keeps them in education, which is a good thing for all of us.
TB: I think we’re looking at this through the wrong end of the telescope here. What we should be asking is why England is one of the very few countries, perhaps the only country in the world, that actually has to bribe young people onto further education and college. Now I want to stress that there are a lot of excellent courses in the FE sector. There are also a lot of people working in the FE sector who are doing a heroic job in almost impossible circumstances. The long and the short of it, as Professor Alison Woolf has said, from the Institute of Education, a lot of them are getting more of what she calls “no value qualifications”. It seems to me that what we should be asking is why have to actually support the FE sector by offering students money to actually attend colleges. It strikes me as being bizarre.
I: So what’s the alternative for them and for us? I mean, if they don’t attend college, what do you think will happen to them?
TB: Well I think that what we should be asking is why these pupils who only- the pupils who have needs, who are not actually going to college are not going. And of course the problem is that with a lot of pupils- I’ve worked in special needs and probation service for a long time, and the one thing I can assure you is that when you have your young people who are coming up from Primary school three and four years behind in basic skills: reading, maths, spelling, by the time they get out of high school it’s amazing that they are even persuaded to go onto further education with a thirty pound a week bribe. If we’re really concerned about the welfare of our young people, we should be looking at the quality of the education that is on offer rather than just giving money to keep a corrupt system going.
I: And another point, Polly Toynbee, that people who are against the continuance of the system use is that, I mean you mention a 10% figure, 10% might go. Basically, looking at it the other way around, 90% of recipients, and this the government says is backed up by their research, 90% of recipients would stay on anyway, even if they didn’t get this money.
PT: They would, but they would really struggle. I was at a college the other day. There were twins in the same class. That’s sixty pounds for the family. Quite a lot of them had siblings a year above or below them. This is a huge blow for low income families. A lot of them would try and get part time jobs, a lot of them will drop out, and there aren’t any part time jobs available to them. Some of them have found jobs, mostly in family shops and things like that. It would be a real hardship for them and also you’re very excluded if you’ve got no money for your bus pass or your lunch and you’ve got no money for anything else, as a teenager, life is very hard indeed and hard for that family. The idea that somehow teenagers cost less than younger children just isn’t the case.
I: Tom Burkard, it just seems, whatever case one might make for longer term reforms of the entire system or ways of looking at the culture of education that are different, if you stop this now, the point Polly Toynbee is making, if you stop this now you have real hardship for a group of people who are already, and nobody seems to question this seriously, who are already very deprived.
TB: Okay, let me just point out that I actually am a very low income person. I make less money than a trainee schoolteacher would. My step-daughter, who has been through college and is now at her final year at Middlesex University, has had no support from her family. She has had to work and she has had to rely on loans and she now has six thousand pounds in the bank. That’s how much more she was able to make through part time work, which she has never had the slightest trouble finding. And through…
I: Hold on hold on. It’s simply not realistic, is it, to suggest that people in the London borough of Tower Hamlets or some other place where a lot of people get EMA simply all go out and get part time jobs and that makes up the money. I mean, you’re not suggesting…
TB: Well she’s working in London. I don’t see why anyone else should have a problem. I mean she’s facing the same problems that everyone in Tower Hamlets does….
PT: Well, I think you live in a realm of unreality. I just think that, you know, you are talking about, well of course there are some kids from well-educated, middle class families, like your own, who don’t have very much money. You know, there are curates poor as a Church mice. That’s a very different situation from families living on the edge, where the kids are determined to try and better themselves, try and get more education, against huge odds. This thirty pounds can really tip things in favour of them not dropping out and do we want more drop outs?
They were debating the recent decision to do away with the EMA (Educational Maintenance Allowance i.e. income support for children in their late teens from particularly low income families) as part of the Coalition government's brutal tax cuts. Polly Toynbee was picked because she's a well-known socialist who is obviously going to be wholly against scrapping the EMA. Meanwhile they seem to have picked Tom Burkard because he's the only person they could find with the right background who would be heartless enough to wholly insist on scrapping it.
The interview becomes rather ridiculous towards the end when he's insisting that children from extremely low income families who want to go onto further education (i.e. A Levels, not university) will have no trouble getting part time jobs because his step-daughter found it easy. Still perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised when we see the website for the Centre for Policy Studies, whom he is representing. On that website they happily brag about their connection to the economic liberalism of the Thatcher era. (More recently they are insisting on the vital importance of marriage in society. *groan*)
It feels like the old libertarian thing which allows poor people "the freedom to remain poor", unless they are lucky enough to get the opportunity to pull themselves out of it (which'll be pretty rare).
This is the same Today programme on Radio Four which brought you the interview with Gary McFarlane.Interviewer: There are more student protests today in advance of tomorrow’s vote on tuition fees and it is tuition fees that have captured most of the headlines and attention in previous protests. The people who have reported on these marches have been impressed as well by the number of students whose main concern is the scrapping, in England, of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA). It gives cash up to 30 pounds a week directly to youngsters between the ages of 16 and 19 in low income homes if they continue with their studies after GCSEs and, they say, they need the money.
“If the government should take away the EMA it’s going to really affect most of the students. Some students, they are coming to college because of the EMA. So that is really going to affect their attendance.”
“My family income is really low; I think it’s about 18 pounds a week. So naturally, EMA, that’s over a third [laughing] of my family income so it makes a big difference”
“I can see why they want to save some money for some students who don’t come in, but there are a lot of students who need that and rely on that to get to college and actually do their work.”
Well, the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee is amongst those who think the 500 million pounds a year cost is money well spent and Tom Burkard from the Centre of Policy Studies is less convinced. They are both on the line. Good morning to you both.
Polly Toynbee and Tom Burkard: Good morning.
Interviewer: Polly Toynbee make the case for EMAs.
PT: Well there are about six hundred and sixty thousand teenagers from very low income families who draw the EMA. They go on to schools and colleges, a lot of them are in FE colleges, doing courses of all kinds. Some of them doing A levels, some all kinds of technical qualifications. A lot of them wouldn’t be able to manage it because in colleges, for instance, you get no free school meals. Some of these colleges, you know they have to travel a long way to it and in most places: no bus passes. And thirty pounds a week for families of this low income, will be a huge blow. At the same time a lot of those families are suffering big benefit cuts anyway. Even those who are in work. The IFS, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says the effect is quite substantial. At least 10 % would drop out and the others would certainly suffer a great deal. Another thing about EMAs is that if you don’t turn up on time every single day, for every single class, you don’t do your homework, you lose your EMA for a week. The result of that is colleges are reporting that those on EMA are actually getting better results than those who are not. So, what do we want? Sixty thousand more drop outs, or not?
I: Tom Burkard, it’s targeted, it helps those who need help and it keeps them in education, which is a good thing for all of us.
TB: I think we’re looking at this through the wrong end of the telescope here. What we should be asking is why England is one of the very few countries, perhaps the only country in the world, that actually has to bribe young people onto further education and college. Now I want to stress that there are a lot of excellent courses in the FE sector. There are also a lot of people working in the FE sector who are doing a heroic job in almost impossible circumstances. The long and the short of it, as Professor Alison Woolf has said, from the Institute of Education, a lot of them are getting more of what she calls “no value qualifications”. It seems to me that what we should be asking is why have to actually support the FE sector by offering students money to actually attend colleges. It strikes me as being bizarre.
I: So what’s the alternative for them and for us? I mean, if they don’t attend college, what do you think will happen to them?
TB: Well I think that what we should be asking is why these pupils who only- the pupils who have needs, who are not actually going to college are not going. And of course the problem is that with a lot of pupils- I’ve worked in special needs and probation service for a long time, and the one thing I can assure you is that when you have your young people who are coming up from Primary school three and four years behind in basic skills: reading, maths, spelling, by the time they get out of high school it’s amazing that they are even persuaded to go onto further education with a thirty pound a week bribe. If we’re really concerned about the welfare of our young people, we should be looking at the quality of the education that is on offer rather than just giving money to keep a corrupt system going.
I: And another point, Polly Toynbee, that people who are against the continuance of the system use is that, I mean you mention a 10% figure, 10% might go. Basically, looking at it the other way around, 90% of recipients, and this the government says is backed up by their research, 90% of recipients would stay on anyway, even if they didn’t get this money.
PT: They would, but they would really struggle. I was at a college the other day. There were twins in the same class. That’s sixty pounds for the family. Quite a lot of them had siblings a year above or below them. This is a huge blow for low income families. A lot of them would try and get part time jobs, a lot of them will drop out, and there aren’t any part time jobs available to them. Some of them have found jobs, mostly in family shops and things like that. It would be a real hardship for them and also you’re very excluded if you’ve got no money for your bus pass or your lunch and you’ve got no money for anything else, as a teenager, life is very hard indeed and hard for that family. The idea that somehow teenagers cost less than younger children just isn’t the case.
I: Tom Burkard, it just seems, whatever case one might make for longer term reforms of the entire system or ways of looking at the culture of education that are different, if you stop this now, the point Polly Toynbee is making, if you stop this now you have real hardship for a group of people who are already, and nobody seems to question this seriously, who are already very deprived.
TB: Okay, let me just point out that I actually am a very low income person. I make less money than a trainee schoolteacher would. My step-daughter, who has been through college and is now at her final year at Middlesex University, has had no support from her family. She has had to work and she has had to rely on loans and she now has six thousand pounds in the bank. That’s how much more she was able to make through part time work, which she has never had the slightest trouble finding. And through…
I: Hold on hold on. It’s simply not realistic, is it, to suggest that people in the London borough of Tower Hamlets or some other place where a lot of people get EMA simply all go out and get part time jobs and that makes up the money. I mean, you’re not suggesting…
TB: Well she’s working in London. I don’t see why anyone else should have a problem. I mean she’s facing the same problems that everyone in Tower Hamlets does….
PT: Well, I think you live in a realm of unreality. I just think that, you know, you are talking about, well of course there are some kids from well-educated, middle class families, like your own, who don’t have very much money. You know, there are curates poor as a Church mice. That’s a very different situation from families living on the edge, where the kids are determined to try and better themselves, try and get more education, against huge odds. This thirty pounds can really tip things in favour of them not dropping out and do we want more drop outs?