2nd opinion: Derailed trainees

This is a story about Janet and John. Both earn £60 a week doing a couple of shifts in a supermarket.

John is a daytime TV addict and spends most of his waking hours on the sofa. Janet is studying full-time at college to get her NVQ2 in childcare so she can get a better job. Guess which one is entitled to claim housing benefit?

Welcome to the world of the 16-hour rule, which states that housing benefit is not available to people over the age of 18 who are studying full-time. You can have found yourself a part-time job to escape from the "seeking work" provisions of the job seekers' allowance, but adults not supported by their families will find it near impossible to study full-time because of the unavailability of housing benefit.

Foyer residents are badly hit by this.

Half our residents got no qualifications at school – not because they lack ability but because family circumstances made consistent attendance, and the completion of coursework, impossible. As they see their contemporaries move ahead, or they experience the bottom end of the labour market, they come to see that returning to learning is essential if they are to progress.

By then, though, it is often too late. Take the case of Peter, who came to the foyer aged 18 having fled violence at home.

Due to the disruption at home he had left his college course halfway through, having completed just the first year. The college was sympathetic, and said he could start again the following September, but by then he would be only two months away from his 19th birthday. Peter's plans have now changed and he is working in a factory.

People resort to desperate stratagems to remain in learning. In another foyer, Dave was given the hard choice, when he turned 19, of staying at the foyer and giving up his college course, or leaving the foyer. He chose to leave, hoping to stay with friends until he finished his course, but it didn't work out. He is now homeless and out of education.

The Foyer Federation is campaigning for the introduction of a further education maintenance allowance, which would enable people to substitute a learning bursary for their JSA payments. But without changes to the housing benefit regulations, they will still be constrained to follow courses of less than 16 hours a week.

We are therefore pressing the government for a formal review of whether the 16-hour rule is still fit for purpose, in an era where unskilled jobs are disappearing and the government is aiming for 90% of the population to have a level three qualification by 2010.

Why should homeless people face the greatest barriers to learning? Why is full-time learning treated like an exotic and rather antisocial activity, whereas part-time learning is encouraged, even though getting a qualification in a term rather than a year would accelerate someone's progress off benefits entirely?

Isn't it time to accept the overwhelming evidence that most people studying full time, particularly young people, are doing so to improve their employability?

We accept the argument that students in higher education, who have other income support arrangements, should not be able to claim housing benefit. But we think that the 16-hour rule for those in further education is probably past its sell-by date.

An interdepartmental review, with access to empirical data about who is learning what, and for what purpose, is long overdue.

Otherwise, we will continue to see students forced to choose between their education and their homes.