Education Maintenance Allowances 2023-24

2. EMA recipients

Total numbers

Figure 1: EMA recipients, by the type of institution, from academic year 2017-18 to 2023-24.

Collection of EMA data for 2019-20 and 2020-21 were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic creating a break in the time series, represented by the dotted line. A longer time series which goes back to the 2006-07 academic year is available in the supplementary tables.

Table 1: EMA recipients, by the type of institution, from academic year 2021-22 to 2023-24.

Throughout the 2023-24 academic year, 21,540 young people received at least one EMA payment. This represents a 3.1% decrease on the total figure for 2022-23 (22,225).

70% of these EMA recipients in 2023-24 were school pupils or on a learning agreement while 30% were college students. In comparison in 2022-23, 73% of EMA recipients were school pupils or on learning agreements and 27% were college students.

Figure 1 shows there was a decrease of 6.4% of EMA recipients who were school pupils or on learning agreements from 16,125 in 2022-23 to 15,095 in 2023-24. For recipients at college there was an increase of 5.7% from 6,100 in 2022-23 to 6,445 in 2023-24.

Overall, the total number of EMA recipients at school or on a Learning Agreement has decreased since 2017-18. For recipients at college the total number receiving an EMA payment has decreased overall since 2017-18 but has been increasing year-on-year since 2021-22.

The increase in college recipients since 2021-22 may partly be explained by Annual Participation Measure data published by Skills Development Scotland. Participation of young people aged 16 to 17 years in Further Education has increased by around a third from 7,990 in 2021-22 to 10,624 in 2023-24.

It is estimated that around 12.3% of all Scottish young people aged 16 to 18 years were in receipt of EMA in 2023-24, a decrease from 13.0% in 2022-23. The proportion has been decreasing since 2016-17, when it was around 18.2% of the population aged 16 to 18 years. As those aged 19 years only make up 0.2% of the total number of EMA recipients they are excluded from this analysis.