A couple of years ago, I visited a ramshackle orphanage in Ukraine with members of a Bradford charity.

More than 100 children slept on ripped, stained mattresses slung across rusty beds. Their toilets were filthy holes in the ground outside.

Although not all technically ‘orphans’, many were from destitute families and had been sent out begging since they were old enough to walk.

The orphanage provided an education of sorts, but it wasn’t officially recognised by the state. Aged 17, these poor souls were turfed out into the world as unqualified outcasts, with many drifting into crime, prostitution and homelessness.

I’ll never forget the bright youngsters I met there, cheated of educational opportunities that would be their only escape from a lifetime of poverty.

Their desperation is a world away from the relative privilege taken for granted by sixth-formers and further education students in the UK, many of whom have been throwing hissy fits because the weekly £30 they’re paid to stay in education is about to be cruelly snatched away. Boo hoo. How are the poor mites expected to top up their mobile phone credit now?

Well, they could do what teenagers did before they were handed public-funded pocket money – get a Saturday job. The House of Commons vote in favour of scrapping the Education Maintenance Allowance has prompted a predictable knee-jerk outcry, but since it costs more than £500m a year, surely this hand-out is a luxury we can’t afford, or justify.

“I need that money for books,” whinged a teenage girl on the news last week. Come off it. I don’t believe any student spends £30 a week continuously on books. The EMA is a costly exercise with little impact other than keeping teenagers out of the unemployment figures. Playing fairy godmother with public money is ridiculously inappropriate when ordinary people are struggling with the soaring cost of living. Why should I dig into my purse to bribe other people’s children to attend lessons?

Paying teenagers to stay in education does nothing to instill a work ethic.

From the age of 14, when I started babysitting, I worked. I had Saturday jobs on a market stall and in a bakery. As a student, I spent every holiday working in factories, shops and pubs. One summer, I spent ten-hour days in a shampoo factory, then changed out of my overalls and spent evenings pulling pints. Another summer, I taught English to rich Spanish children. Not working simply wasn’t an option. Sixteen to 19-year-olds already have access to free, state-funded education. They don’t have the right to be paid to turn up for it.