Funding problem for young dancer "has been resolved"

Thursday 09 August 2018

Jersey’s Education Assistant Minister says the plight of a student, who faced not going to college later this year after his department reduced the funding available to her, "has been resolved."

Deputy Jeremy Maçon said his department would be publishing more details soon.

At a Complaints Board hearing two weeks ago, 'Mrs X' argued her daughter had expected enough funding for a specialist drama course in the UK, but said, because the grant system was changed, reducing the total funding available, she now wouldn’t be able to go.

In its finding the Complaints Board described Education’s decision to “withdraw the offer of [the] Bursary to ‘top up’ [the student’s] fees… [as] unjust, oppressive and improperly discriminatory.”

It said it had published its findings as quickly as possible so the Minister could “hopefully act swiftly”, and the student would be able to go to college in September.

Pictured: Assistant Education Minister Deputy Jeremy Macon says plight of student highlighted in Complaints Board review has 'been resolved'.

In its findings the board also noted that although Education had said under the new scheme no one would be “worse off”, which in this case wasn’t correct.

Other students – particularly those in their second and third years of study - and their parents are also raising problems with the new system. 

In a long facebook posting the Student Loan Support Group Jersey explains why:

“As we see it the removal [of tax relief] this year for those starting in their third year this year [means] they are at a disadvantage compared to those starting their first year. This is because for the first year a student gets a grant that was based on the previous year tax assessment.

"Of course that tax assessment would not have the allowance factored in, as when you filled in your tax form the student would not have been in HE at that point, under the old scheme it is received a year late, and that carries on in your tax until after the student has completed a course.

"By removing it this year though parents can’t catch it up because it will be removed completely in the tax assessment year of 2019 which would normally reduce your ITIS payments in 2020, plus they are taking it off the grant this year."

According to the group the net effect of this is that over four years, those students now entering their third year, after tax allowance losses, will only get £4,570 instead of £9,250.

Deputy Maçon has acknowledged the problem. He says the changes to the grants system came as a surprise by the previous Council of Ministers came as a surprise, and it’s, “...very frustrating to have inherited such a system”. “If, as the Group claim, Education knew about the situation in May, I don’t know why they didn’t do anything”. He’s hoping a solution can be found soon.