Learning is an essential need

Asylum seekers are banned from formal employment and mainstream social security benefits like universal credit and child benefit, because they have ‘no recourse to public funds’. If they have no family members to support them and are destitute, they can apply for limited subsistence payments and housing under the UK’s asylum support system.1 The rates of subsistence have deteriorated over time,2 due to targeted cuts and a lack of uprating in line with inflation, pushing individuals and families deeper into poverty. In 2023, when the weekly subsistence payment for asylum support recipients was £47.39 per person, a family of four would have received £189.56 a week or a fifth (21 per cent) of the median income for that family size after housing costs are taken into account.3 This places most families in very deep poverty; a family of four in 2023 would be £357.19 below the relative poverty line. Although the mainstream benefits and asylum support systems differ fundamentally in purpose and conditionalities, at present, in 2025, a family of four without earned income would be eligible for £1,401.35 per month from universal credit and child benefit,4 excluding housing support and any disability‐related support they are eligible for. The same family on asylum support would receive just 60 per cent of this – £852.45 per month – based on the current weekly rate of support of £49.18 per person, regardless of disability or special educational needs. 

These families must also manage without access to bank accounts and with various restrictions on how they can spend their allowance, adding to the challenges in meeting their children’s needs. 

In recent years, children and adult family members made up over half of those receiving asylum support from the Home Office,5 yet their experiences of poverty and material deprivation in the asylum system are seldom acknowledged in public debates or considered in policymaking and service design. Children – though often invisible in public and policy debates – are nevertheless detrimentally affected by such policies and processes. 

Listening to children and parents 

In a recent study, I explored children’s and families’ experiences of poverty and material deprivation within the UK’s asylum support system and how the lack of right to work for asylum seekers affects children and young people. To do this, I interviewed 13 children and young people (9‐ to 22‐years‐old),6 and 29 parents and carers7 in 26 families receiving asylum support between 2020 and 2023.8 Of the 26 families who participated in the study, 17 were involved in longitudinal interviews, consisting of three repeat interviews over a year. In total, I had 74 interviews for analysis. 

The findings from family members show that the asylum support system exposes children and young people to a ‘survival‐only’ regime, resulting in persistent low income and severe material deprivation. This manifests in different domains of their lives, including within the home, in educational settings and within the local community. Interviews with young people and parents showed that the lack of access to earned income, in combination with limited subsistence payments, leaves families unable to consistently meet their ‘essential living needs’, or the needs that young people and parents think are important for children and young people’s development, education, integration and social participation. In this article, I focus on how children and young people receiving asylum support experience poverty within educational settings and show that while some of these experiences are similar to those of other children in poverty in the UK, there are also some unique challenges that need to be considered in policymaking. 

Material disadvantage in schools 

Children living in families receiving asylum support are entitled to free education until age 18. However, participating in education comes with significant costs. Studies focused on children’s own experiences of poverty have shown that it permeates children’s school lives through social and material disadvantages, and through exclusionary practices.9 More recent studies show that such experiences are widespread today.10 Most of the families interviewed faced challenges in meeting the costs of children’s and young people’s educational needs, including buying uniforms, paying for transport to and from school, school meals, IT equipment and data. Some of the families interviewed, who were new arrivals, faced additional challenges like having limited support networks to help them navigate school for the first time, understand the processes and systems in place and their rights and entitlements, and access support like second‐hand uniforms. Some families faced language barriers in being able to advocate effectively for their children.

School uniforms

Most parents with school‐aged children spoke about the challenges of buying school uniforms. This often involved having to sacrifice other essential needs, setting aside some money each week to buy items like shoes and jumpers, and buying one piece at a time over several weeks. Several families faced additional challenges as they were moved from their accommodation with no notice and had to change schools and purchase new uniforms. Mina’s (age 15) family had received support to buy school uniforms when her family was in hotel accommodation for five months and received no cash support. After one month at that school, they were moved. Mina’s new school had promised to provide a blazer and tie but had not done so several weeks later at our first interview. Her parents spent £90 on uniforms for her brother and £50 for her – 20 per cent of their family’s total monthly allowance at the time. For several months, Mina also had to pay £2 for return bus fares to attend school because this was not provided through other means. This would have been around a third of the daily allowance paid to her family for her essential living needs, leaving just under £4 for all other essentials like food during the school week. She felt that going to school shouldn’t come with the extra expense: 

‘The school wants us to come to school but they don’t pay us [to be able to] so we can come to school… [School] should be free.’ 

Home Office support policy points to options for families to access second‐hand or discounted uniforms, but this is not realistic for many families who are often unaware of the different sources of support upon arrival and will have to enter or move schools throughout the year, not only at the beginning of the school year when uniform sales are more likely to be available. Years of austerity have meant that very few local authorities now provide uniform grants.11 Damika – who had been recognised as a refugee at the time of our interview – had spent many years living in the same area with her husband and three children aged eight, five and two. They had established some connections to local charities, so she was able to use those to source second‐hand uniforms. Aside from underwear, she could not afford to buy any new clothes for her children, including uniforms: 

‘I bought from the school uniform sale you know that children having the second‐hand uniform sale in school, so we buy those things. And then, normally [charity name] they providing jackets and, you know, other extra clothes because they are really expensive I can’t afford that.’ 

Relying solely on second‐hand clothes added to Damika’s feelings of guilt and stigma at not being able to provide things that her children needed and wanted. Other young people and parents also reflected on feelings of stigma and shame. 

The latest published periodic review of asylum support rates for 2023 does not list school uniforms within its categories of essential needs under ‘clothing and footwear’. In the past, the Home Office recognised that school uniforms may mean additional costs for families with children,12 but did not provide any additional allocations for this purpose. In 2022, £3.01 (8 per cent) of the weekly allowance (then £39.63) had been allocated for clothing and footwear13 – £156.52 per year. This would be the equivalent of £204.59 per year at 2024/25 support rates (now £49.18). School uniform costs are considerable: a government‐commissioned survey of parents in 202314 found that the average total expenditure on school uniform and PE kit combined, based on the items required, was £381.92. Only 18 per cent of parents/carers who had experienced financial hardship had received some assistance, and two thirds of parents in these circumstances were not aware of any financial assistance that may have been available. Given this is true for the general population, it’s unsurprising that so few parents interviewed in my study knew about or were able to access support. 

School meals 

Despite children on Section 95 and (more recently) Section 4 support15 being eligible for free school meals (FSMs),16 my research found that many were not accessing this support. Some parents were unaware of their eligibility or were unable to get this support from schools that didn’t recognise their eligibility and needs, while others experienced disruptions in access. 

Kaspar (15) had to wait several months to access his school place. When he finally did, he wasn’t receiving any FSMs or transport support, and the daily allowance of around £6 at the time (2021–22) barely covered his daily school food costs and bus fares, leaving nothing for his other essential needs. He could only attend school because of the additional money his parents provided from their family’s overall allowance. But this meant that the family had to make sacrifices elsewhere. This was already challenging as the family were receiving no income for his older brother, receiving support for five (£225) rather than six (£270) family members, and therefore below Home Office‐defined destitution levels. 

Kaspar and his family also faced significant language barriers. When they first arrived, they had limited English and were not provided with translated materials or interpreters, making it difficult to get help and advocate for their children. There was no induction process or key worker support to help them understand what was available in their local area. Eventually, Kaspar was able to get FSMs in secondary school, but only after a year and a half of being on asylum support. 

Two of Gabriel’s teenage children had their FSMs suddenly terminated by the council due to an administrative error. This was eventually resolved, but it meant that his children were left without access to FSMs for four months. During this time, they didn’t want to take food from home because they knew their family had limited income and ended up going hungry during the school day. 

Food insecurity is a key problem for individuals and families on asylum support, highlighted in other survey‐based research.17 However, no survey or government administrative data is available to examine the take‐up of FSMs among asylum support recipients, though this would be important to verify to what extent children are actually accessing the support they are entitled to. Families’ accounts also reveal a lack of support to help them to access existing entitlements in some areas they are moved to. 

Other costs

Many families also spoke about struggling to meet school‐related travel costs; to access IT devices and data for children’s home learning, revision and coursework; and to pay for educational trips and school activities like fairs, discos, celebrations and fundraising events. Gabriel, a parent with one primary‐ and two secondary‐school‐aged children on asylum support for over five years spoke about prioritising children’s digital access: 

‘Yes we have a wifi access but it’s taking other costs from another side. You need to sacrifice sometimes. They still have to have online access to read their emails even before the pandemic. To follow up their learning at home, reading materials. They do need internet yes. But it has a cost.’ 

Some of these costs were necessary for children to physically participate in education, while others were expectations on families and were necessary to enable families to be part of the school community and to support children’s integration. Like many parents, Valentina, a single parent with two children aged 11 and 8 in the UK, struggled to meet all the additional school‐related costs, which her family needed to be part of the school community, so her children didn’t feel left out. For families like hers, these were essential costs: 

‘Here I go thinking that everything is going to be good. And then they’ve got a dress‐up day where the kids have got to put either spotty colours or they’ve got to do this one. Ah! [exacerbated] I don’t have this at home. And you’ve got to go out and say “okay, I’ll try to find this thing”. You don’t want your child to feel left out. You’re not supposed to have a phone because if you have a phone you’ll have to pay top up your credit. Who’s going to help? It’s, it’s, it’s bits and bobs but it’s a lot too.’  

Many young people simply miss out on educational and social trips because of their lack of resources and financial exclusion. Nadia (19) spoke about missing out on an educational trip to London with her peers as her family could not afford it. Mina (15) missed out on an end‐of‐year trip to the cinema, which she got as a reward for her good work and attendance. She couldn’t go because even though her parents were willing to sacrifice the money, they could not make an online payment. 

Going backwards 

These issues are affecting lots of children. At the end of 2020 (the most recent date at which age breakdowns are available), of the 15,692 children receiving asylum support accommodation and subsistence, 38 per cent (5,990) were primary school age and 22 per cent (3,476) were secondary school age.18 

The government deems the costs associated with children’s education not to be ‘essential living needs’ under the asylum support regime, but they are clearly essential for children and young people to participate in school, which is a legal requirement. Schools require that pupils have uniforms and equipment, often including laptops or tablets, calculators and other stationery, so they can participate in home learning, reading, revision and coursework. Asylum support subsistence rates do not take account of this. Families’ lack of access to sufficient resources and an inability to earn, alongside other challenges like language barriers, lack of access to bank accounts and limited awareness of their rights and entitlements, mean that children in the asylum system are particularly at risk of struggling in their education. Yet government policy has moved in the opposite direction. In May 2025, the government chose to freeze already meagre support rates despite ongoing increases to the cost of living.19 More recently, the government implemented a significant change20 to how asylum support recipients can make payments with their ASPEN card (the debit card provided to asylum seekers), without any warning or consultation. The restrictions mean that families cannot use their card in shops or for services that the Home Office deems are not intended to meet ‘essential living needs’. This includes all primary and secondary schools, uniform shops, computer shops, childcare services, and various forms of health, leisure, fitness and entertainment. While they may still be able to pay with cash (those receiving Section 95 support), this form of ‘welfare quarantining’ is likely to make existing challenges worse still with implications for children’s school participation.21  

It’s unclear whether the government’s child poverty strategy will bring any meaningful change for children and young people on asylum support. There is a critical need to allow parents to work and increase levels of asylum support to provide poverty protection for children and families. Allowing direct cash transfers through child‐focused support like child benefit and, in Scotland, the Scottish child payment and Best Start provisions, would have an immediate impact. At the very least, the government should make sure that children are accessing existing entitlements like FSMs, transport to school provision and uniform grants. No change would see yet more children growing up in deep poverty and severe material deprivation.