I WOULD like to join the great Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) debate. As parents, my husband and I work long and hard, working overtime most months to achieve a reasonable standard of living. We have taught our children to expect to work for a living and to earn extra for luxuries, holidays etc.

I now find I am almost expected (from the gist of recent letters) to work harder to afford to give my daughters up to £30 per week to make them equal to their peers who get the same from EMA.

I then have to listen to their peers saying they are "too lazy to work. I am glad I get my weekends off", while my daughter works as many hours as she can at weekends to just to earn the £30 per week for luxuries she enjoys.

Thankfully, we have brought up children who see how hard we work and they feel it is not fair to put extra pressure on us to do even more overtime to enable us to pay the EMA equivalent.

If the allowance were offered in voucher form for local outlets, ie travel for buses, trains etc, or for local food shops such as our local bakeries and mini-supermarkets, it would be used by the more responsible young people, rather than money which is too often spent on hair extensions, electric guitars and expensive "fashion trainers".

Julie Dickens,

Huntington Road,

York.

Updated: 10:55 Monday, January 16, 2006