By scrapping the Education Maintenance Allowance the Coalition government risks losing their opportunity to target entrenched problems of social mobility and educational disadvantage among pupils from deprived backgrounds in England

In late 2010 the Coalition government announced that the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) – a UK-wide scheme that offers weekly finance to students from low-income households who continue into post-compulsory further education – would come to an end in England after only 4 years of national availability to all 16-18 year olds. Joan Wilson finds that the scrapping of the scheme may work against the Coalition’s plans for social mobility.