I understand how important EMA is to young people today as at

Comment on Election 2010 Michael Gove Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families by David.

I understand how important EMA is to young people today as at 16 years old (I’m 40 now) I’d messed up my school education, (was a bit of a juvenile delinquent and spent a couple of months in a detention center) but had realised my mistake and considered staying on at school to do A-Levels (I was more than capable of them). First thing my Mother said was “I’m not paying for it” and that was the end of the conversation!

After working a couple of dead end jobs at 17 I went back into full time education, GCSE’s had just started and I did a year of GCSE’s followed by A-Levels and OU courses and eventually went to University to study genetics at 21. In hindsight I could have applied for University at 19-20, but I thought getting into Uni was harder than it actually was/is. Thought you had to be doing exceptionally well, I was shocked at the educational level of some of the students at Uni! Funnily enough my 18 year old son was home educated (never went to school) and studied OU courses at 16-18 (got EMA for doing other courses at a local collage as well) and used them to gain entry to Uni, he’s as shocked as I was almost 20 years ago with the educational level of many of the students today.

There was no EMA back then and though I could get an almost free education (OU courses cost me £10 each as I had no money and though university was free, there was student loans: I left uni just £3K extra in debt which was the student loans), to live I had to lie and say I was available for work while I was studying full-time (at one point I was doing 3 A-Levels and 2 full OU courses). Every two weeks I’d sign on as unemployed because under the last Conservative government there was no facilities for people like myself with no family financial support to study full time.

Had I not lied about being available for full time work I could not have afforded to study full time and I doubt I’d have gone to university to study genetics.

There must have been tens of thousands of perfectly capable young people denied a university level education, not because of lack of ability, but lack of financial support.

If EMA is cancelled/reduced under this Conservative/Lib Dem government I wonder how people with no parental financial support will be able to gain a university level education?

David