Tories attack Government scheme to keep poorest teenagers in education » Education » 24dash.com

A multi-million pound Government scheme to encourage teenagers to stay in education after 16 is failing to reach the poorest pupils, the Tories said today.

Ministers spent £924 million on the Educational Maintenance Allowance in the first three years of its operation, paying £30 a week to teenagers from low and middle-income backgrounds who study for further qualifications after GCSEs.

But the Tories said that among the poorest group of pupils - those eligible for free school meals - the number staying on after 16 increased by a total of less than 400 over the three-year period.

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said the means-tested scheme was an example of the failure of the Government's "top-down" approach to tackling poverty.

"They have spent hundreds of millions of pounds but the poorest children are still extremely unlikely to continue in education after GCSEs.

"We need to get to the root causes of this inequality and it begins with the need to strengthen relationships and support families."

But schools minister Jim Knight accused him of a "secret plan" to scrap EMAs, which he said had encouraged thousands of young people to study for further qualifications since they were launched across England in 2004.

He said: "The low statistics being banded about today are based on young people staying on to do A-levels or their equivalent and are therefore misleading.

"EMAs have been a success in significantly increasing the staying on rate of young people.

"A report this April by the Institute of Fiscal Studies showed 18,500 extra young people stayed on in education in its first year of operation, with a 6% increase in young people post-16 plus catching up with their GCSEs or their equivalent."

Mr Gove told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "What we have seen is children in the most disadvantaged circumstances falling behind.

"If you are a pupil eligible for free school meals you are 200 times more likely to leave school without a single effective GCSE pass than you are to get three As at A-Level."

He called for a "greater degree of freedom" for schools adding: "Teachers and heads would rather have a relationship with engaged parents and their community than a distant command and control relationship with the minister who issues diktats from his desk."

But Mr Knight rejected the charge the Government was failing to reach the poorest pupils and close the attainment gap.

He told Today: "The gap is narrowing. Policies like Sure Start, the EMA are working."

The EMA had helped 18,500 poorer pupils stay on at school in its first year of implementation, he added.

The Government had been making "really good progress" in breaking the link between poorer backgrounds and low educational attainment.

Mr Knight said later that EMA had been subject to an extensive and robust independent evaluation.

He said: "The low figures being quoted today are totally misleading and refer only to a tiny group of EMA students who go on to do A-levels in a school sixth form and claim free school meals.

"It totally ignores those who go to college, do other qualifications, do not claim free school meals or re-take their GCSEs."