Education Maintenance Allowance : the first year : a quantitative evaluation

The Department for Education and Employment (DfEE) has commissioned a consortium of organisations to evaluate the piloting of Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs). The consortium, led by the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP), includes the National Centre for Social Research, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Institute for Employment Research (IER). This report contains results from the first wave of quantitative interviews with young people and their parents following the introduction of EMA. This chapter first describes the policy context for EMA and its structure and coverage. This is followed by a brief description of the overall evaluation and of the design of the quantitative element. Chapter 2 then contains descriptive analysis of some of the characteristics of young people in the survey. In addition to providing information about previously under-researched areas, this chapter also provides a context for the analyses in Chapter 5. Chapter 3 continues the descriptive theme, examining young people’s intentions about their future after the end of compulsory schooling and their actual destinations. It focuses on the group of young people who, at the time of interview, were not in education, employment or training (NEET) – a group currently of major concern to policy makers and on whom it was hoped EMA might have a major impact (see further, below). Chapter 4 describes in detail the methodological approach adopted to estimate the effect of EMA on participation in post-16 education. Finally, Chapter 5 contains the results of the statistical modelling of the effect of EMA on participation rates, amongst eligible young people in full-time education.