HC Deb 07 October 2003 vol 411 c166W
Mr. Bill O'Brien

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on the progress of the pilot schemes on the Education Maintenance Allowance scheme. [131408]

Alan Johnson

An independent evaluation of EMAs has been taking place since 1999. Evidence from the second year of the pilots, which was published in July 2002, shows that EM As have increased the number of eligible young people in full time education in year 12 in pilot areas by 5.9 percentage points compared to local authority areas without EMAs. The EMA scheme will be available across the whole of England from 2004 and the pilot scheme will continue until then.

Evaluation of the pilots has also provided information on which features of the different variants are most effective. This has informed development of the national model.