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Published: 15/06/2023

EMA bulletin – June 2023

Summer holidays

Many of you will be on summer break soon. We're opening the Learning Centre Portal early for entries for the week commencing 26 June. You can submit attendances from Monday 26 June. This means the allocations are in place before you break for the holidays.

Please also check your 2022/23 holiday entries for July and August. You need to tick all of the weeks you are off during the summer as holiday weeks. This will automatically mark all students as on holiday, meaning the portal is up to date.

Please also make sure that you check the ‘unconfirmed weeks’ section of the portal. This will administer any outstanding student payments.

Enter your holiday information for academic year 2023/24

If you have not already done so, please enter holiday information for academic year 2022/23 on the Learning Centre Portal.

You need to enter holidays, including 2024 summer holidays, for the whole academic year before it starts in September.

You must enter at least 8 weeks of holidays. This is to ensure that the 'two-day rule' for the start of the academic year and returning from holidays is considered when deciding which weeks qualify as EMA earning weeks.

You will not be able to confirm attendance for academic year 2023/24 until you've entered your holidays. This could affect the scheduling of payments to students.

Service Review Forums

Thank you to those who were able to attend our Service Review Forums, both online or face to face. You can view the presentation slides and Q and As from the forums on the LC Services website.

EMA applications for academic year 2023/24

Please encourage any new EMA students to:

  • complete and sign their application forms for academic year 2023/24
  • return the signed application forms with any supporting documents to Student Finance NI as soon as they can

Students can also download the application form and guidance from nidirect.

Bonus allocation

If you have not already done so, please allocate June bonuses on the Learning Centre Portal. You should also make submissions for students who have not achieved their objectives.

Please confirm all bonuses by Friday 30 June.

EMA sample checks

We've been issuing letters about this year's sample check to returning EMA students from early June. We'll also send them reminders in July and August.

Students must provide the evidence we've asked for by 1 September. Otherwise, they'll get a message to say that they will not receive any EMA payments until we have the information we need.

You can see which of your students are affected by signing into the Learning Centre Portal and checking the Sample Check report in the Reports tab.

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