The Act abolishing adult education allowance has come into effect on 1 June 2024. In order to be eligible for adult education allowance, both your studies and your period of support must have started by 31 July 2024 at the latest. Read more on News concerning the adult education allowance -page.
We are currently experiencing a high volume of adult education allowance applications and customer service enquiries. We process both initial applications and payment applications on a first-come, first-served basis. You can find the latest estimated processing times from our website. You can also always check the status of your application using our online service.
We are currently getting a record number of applications, calls and emails every day. The same customer service team that processes the adult education allowance applications also answers to the enquiries. This is why it may take longer than usual for our customer service team to answer calls and emails at the moment.
If, for example, we need more information to be able to process your application, we will email you. If you have not heard from us, just sit back and wait for our decision. We will also email you about our decision.
We sincerely apologise for the delays in our customer service. We are doing everything that we can to clear the backlog of applications.
The Employment Fund introduced a new online customer service portal and processing system for adult education allowances on 3 August 2020.
The changes were necessary due to the legislative reform of adult education allowances, which took effect on 1 August 2020. The reform marks the most significant change in the allowance system in the last 20 years. The procedures for applying for, granting and paying allowances have also changed, and the Employment Fund consequently introduced a new processing system and online customer service portal.
Payment applications submitted through the online customer service portal in September need to be processed manually and with extra care in order for us to make sure that the new automated decision-making system works as intended. Automated processing will be deployed in October for those adult education allowance applicants who have given their consent to automated decision-making.