Form errors delay student grants

Students can receive up to �30 per week

Almost 100,000 students in England face delays with government grants because they filled in the application forms incorrectly.

So far 294,000 16 year olds have applied for education maintenance allowances (EMAs), worth up to £30 a week.

The grants were introduced this autumn to counter England's poor staying-on rate after secondary school.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said some applicants had given wrong banking or tax details.

'No backlog'

So far, some 175,000 students have been told they are eligible.

Of those, 84,000 have received EMA payments in the first three weeks of the system operating.

The process usually takes three weeks from the completion of forms to receiving money.

The education department denied any "backlog", adding that the return of forms had been in line with expectations.

It was estimated that 350,000 of the 660,000 16 year olds in the UK would be eligible for the new means-tested grants this year.

Under the system, if a student misses a single lesson without good reason they lose their entire allowance for that week.

Less than 60% of 17 year olds are in education in England, which ministers acknowledge is one of the lowest rates in the industrialised world.

EMAs, piloted across a third of England since 1999, have increased post-16 participation rates by up to 10% in the most deprived areas, according to a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

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