Bulletin for August 2024

The new academic year 2024/25

We require you to carry out the following administrative tasks in preparation for the new academic year.

Both new and returning learners need to sign a new EMA/WGLG Learning Agreement for each academic year. The EMA/WGLG scheme start date for academic year 2024/25 will be 9 September.

Learning Agreements should be signed and input to the portal within 10 working days of an approved application - or 9 September whichever is later. You may have learners who'll return to study earlier and have a signed Learning Agreement in place. If so, you can confirm their attendance before 9 September.

If you have not already done so, please also remember to enter your holidays for academic year 2024/25. You can find more information about how to enter your holidays in the guidance notes on the Learning Centre Services website.

You should remove any students who are no longer studying with you from the 2024/25 academic year portal ASAP or within 10 working days of 9 September.

Change in EMA Admin staff at your Learning Centre?

If there's been a change in staff administering EMA/WGLG at your Learning Centre please do contact me to arrange a training session either online or face to face.

How should EMA/WGLG students apply?

For new students, we’re expecting to launch the online application process for 2024/25 on 16th September subject to testing. We’ll issue further updates ahead of the launch.

EMA/WGLG students can currently apply using the paper application form. Paper application forms are available from the learning centres directly or can be downloaded from the Student Finance Wales website.

Returning students are not required to submit a paper application. Instead, their signed 2024/25 EMA or WGLG (FE) Agreement acts as their application to reapply for support for a further year. Student Finance Wales will have written to returning students during the Spring to let them know the next steps to follow for academic year 2024 to 2025.

Learning Centre Services website

Please remember that you can find all of our guidance documents for both EMA and WGLG FE on the Learning Centre Services website. Please familiarise yourself with the layout.

You can find academic year 2024/25 Learning Agreements and payment information guides on the portal under the downloads section.

Backdated EMA payments

To be eligible for backdated payments to the start of the academic year, students must apply within 13 weeks of the course start date. Applications received after the 13 weeks will still be eligible for backdated pay but only to the approximate time we received their application form.

Please encourage students to apply as soon as possible.