Financial education: are we really still debating this?

Victoria Bischoff (any relation to Abe Bischoff of Swansea University European Business School?)

Excellent news!

Something really positive today after more bad news re. Greece.

I have admiration for Martin Lewis for giving good financial advice to many adults let alone children.

How can the children of parents who are up financially up the creek without a paddle learn from their parents?

Teaching kids some of the basics of financial planning would go a long way in giving those from disadvantaged backgrounds the foundation to build their lives and help bridge the huge inequality gap they have been born into.

Education in general is very important, FINANCIAL education is VITAL for many of the youngest generation today who do not have financially wise parents to give them personal guidance as they take their first steps on the road to personal financial responsibility.

How can kids whose parents are totally irresponsible learn if they are not taught by somebody they should trust; especially as they are surrounded by media advertisements for a multitude of the most unsound of financial products and subjected to tons of junk mail encouraging them to take out debt at huge rates of interest?

I'll sign up for it as soon as I know where to sign!

Thank you for bringing the petition to my notice.

I am one of those who think that the education system should get its act together on the basic subjects of maths and English. It would be very nice for it to provide education specifically in personal finance but how realistic is it to expect sufficient resources (money and knowhow) to be forthcoming to make it worthwhile?

I reluctantly agree with Chucky Chicken.

The curriculum is already crowded with compulory modules and children are tested to death. No extra money will be forthcoming because governments habitually decree that all new initiatives will be funded by efficiency savings. Piffle.

Get the basics right in English, reading, writing, comprehension, spelling, grammar... and arithmetic and the rest will follow. In an ideal world history, geography, economics, ethics, modern languages, sciences, practical subjects would all be taught together and reinforce each other. Give kids a few financial reports and unit trust sales pitches to learn comprehension and deep suspicion of flim-flam merchants.

Somewhere in the mix they should learn the power of compound interest and that commission payments corrupt advisers and sales people.

Maths, English and Finance (M.E.F.) should be compulsory or there'll be a real MEF up!

Science, Netball, African Studies, Finance & Ukulele lessons? (S.N.A.F.U.)

We certainly could do with people understanding at least :

basic arithmetic

percentages

compound growth

exponential function

basic stats

This would certainly help people not to get totally shafted on pay day loans. 10Squliion % APR and other "legal financial scams".

maybe someone should've given gordon brown a primer in these subjects before he coined the phrase "no more boom and bust". Particularly the exponential function in relation to debt.

Maybe they just don't want the proles knowing when their being screwed?

After all headline news doesn't often stand up to numeric analysis.

Robert

For his puny puns he will be duly punishéd.

Considering the complexities of finance, and all the available mis selling etc mechanisms, I feel as a person who taught/lectured economics/business studies/accountancy that an insight by childern into finance is necessary.

If there are such serious constraints on funding, as suggested, the very least that could be done is to revise the curriculum, to ensure that aspects of finance are taught within a number of different subjects.

With a careful selection of case studies within different subjects, the finance aspect could then be integrated to become meanigful, and related to real issues like loans, APR, mortgages etc.

Ways can be found to improve on financial education, providing people are willing and Government wants to implement it.

Prof Eman

I was taught at school that if you are thinking of buying a BMW, don't ask the BMW car salesman for advice. Mr Lewis' lesson plans for teenagers read as if he is trying to drum up business. He owns a credit brokerage business, so that comes as no surprise to me because of what I was taught at school.

I would hate to see what I was taught replaced by Mr Lewis' teenage cash class:

You have £2,500 on a Barclaycard at 16% interest, and have done for a few

years. You also need to borrow £1,000 for stuff for a new home. What’s the best

credit card solution you can come up with?

What’s the answer?

Credit card deals change all the time, so it depends on when you do this. Yet the

process of comparing credit cards to try and find the winning deal is the best lesson

possible. Here are some hints.

• All cards aren’t the same. While they’re the same shape and size, the rates and

deals on credit cards differ massively; after all 50 Cent and the Cheeky Girls both sell

records, but they’re certainly not the same. So ensure you read the small print and

check exactly what the terms are.

• They’re a tool, not an accessory. Don’t ever be drawn into picking a credit card for

its colour or design, and forget gimmicks or cards linked to football teams or funky

stores. These are ways to draw you in. Always compare cards based on which is best

financially for you.

• There’s more than one interest rate. One card may have a number of different

interest rates. The two main ones are for ‘purchases’ - for new spending on the card

- and ‘balance transfers’ which is a special offer if you move debt from a previous

credit card to it (now read the challenge again and try to spot which is which).

• It’s not about getting ‘one card’. Don’t assume that you’re looking for one

credit card, the cash class winners were actually the ones who realised they needed

two cards: one for the cheapest purchases debt and one for the cheapest balance

transfers. There’s no ‘one-size-fits all deal.

Maybe finance should NOT be taught in school; with more easily available [yet more complex] information available and good financial education there would be zero comparative advantage for those of us who've taken the trouble to work out how to make a few bob?

It does appear that there are some people who find anything to do with financial matters totally boring; they'd rather either work [or not work] and spent everything they can get their hands on rather than consider accumulating any capital and getting their money to work for them!

You can take the horse to water but not force that horse to drink and kids should at least have access to the fountain of knowledge and common sense available to them when they apply such 'boring' subjects as mathematics to the real world - and to some a course on 'How to become a millionaire' might make Mathematics more exciting and with others 'How to make pretty patterns' might also be fun by also making use of Mathematics.

English related courses on 'How to write the lyrics to a successful pop song - yeah, yeah,yeah?' might also raise the apathy level and 'How to Manage your own pop band' could combine Mathematics, English, 'Social Sciences' and, of course, Biology [how not to go deaf before you go brain dead with killer decibel levels].

Even University Management courses seem to teach very little to do with real financial issues or anything to do with Management - maybe the subject is just too hard a concept for those academic types who live in ivory towers unconnected to the real world 'outside'.

As noted already, I do not think including a personal finance subject in the national curriculum is practicable. I sympathise, however, with the views expressed of including finance-related topics in basic maths - by the way, we called it arithmetic in my day. Some of the best arithmetic lessons I experience were playing "shops" with toy money - and theygot the point across. I'm sure the same could be done with compound interest and the likes - it's hardly rocket science if taught properly.

Hi Robert - no relation as far as I know! There seem to be quite a few Bischoff tribes floating around....

Re the petition, you can sign up at this web address - http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/8903 - or by following the 'e-petition' link at the top of this piece.

Thanks for commenting,

Victoria

Has anyone actually considered that a financially knowledgeable population would not be as gullibe & therefore not such a profit making captive audience?

This government & the one before it & many of the politicians within them have certainly benefited from having access to accountants who can perform miracles with regards to taxation or how not to contribute your fair share to the country they live in.

We are governed by an elite who in their majority have either Oxford or Cambridge university education, which very few from the 99% ordinary people, can never aspire to.

Keep em in the dark & feed em bullshit & that way we can continue to rule over the mushrooms! that has been their policy from the beginning, so to, to the end!

Politicians have no respect for their electorate, they believe we are all, like them fiddling our expenses, stealing paper clips etc so what are we grumbling about?

Humanity now lives in a complex globalised world. People should be encouraged and supported to understand how the systems work. They should also be encouraged to act ethically. Whatever we do now effects other people. We have the choice to pursue personal gain at whatever cost to our fellow human beings or alternatively take into account the common good. If we choose the first option we may have to pay the costs.

Is this not a family responsibility?

Im not sure I trust the modern crop of teaching lefties to teach my grandchildren in financial matters

I will manage this by various means. .

Teachers should just ensure they can add up, spell and write

A bridge too far for many . .

I agree with SM. Essentially, the responsibility runs as follows:

Firstly, the parents until the "child" is "mature".

Secondly, the "child" himself or herself when he or she is "mature".

Thirdly, the education system - to provide the basic skills.

Personal finance is a life skill and it's impossible for the education system to deal specifically with all life skills. The "family" must, in my opinion, carry prime responsibility for these with the role of the education system being to provide some of the tools of the trade, so to speak.

CC,

You write:

'Personal finance is a life skill and it's impossible for the education system to deal specifically with all life skills. The "family" must, in my opinion, carry prime responsibility for these with the role of the education system being to provide some of the tools of the trade, so to speak.'

How can lifelong unemployed parents with almost zero life skills up to their necks in 'next benefit payment debt' pass on good life skills to their children?

Schools should teach children to read and write and prepare them either for life after school whether into immediate work, an apprenticeship of some sort or higher education.

I'd imagine that financial life skills are ESSENTIAL; and if the parents are incapable of giving these skills who can?

I'd also imagine that a certain mimum degree of morality/ethics/whatever should be taught in schools. We all know that this is also the primary duty of parents but, again, if many children have parents who are disenfranchised and have a totally negative outlook on life then children need to be given the opportunity to know that:

'life as it is for my parents does not mean I am condemned to the same bleak future if only I can learn to apply the financial common sense and ethics taught to me at school''

I think Robert Court makes a valid point. I suggest, however, that there is difference between having a responsibility and fulfilling it. "Families" have, I agree, the prime responsibility for most if not all life skills and some will be better than others on delivery. How to make up the shortfall if there is one is surely a separate issue - regardless of whether or not the responsibility exists.

As to the teaching of morality, etc in schools, I recall that there is a statutory obligation for schools to teach religious education - although I'm unclear as to how well it is met. Nonetheless, "the family" can hardly expect to sidestep a fundamental duty on what is little more than a technicality.

This is going rather beyond "personal finance" but, arguably, it's part and parcel of the bigger picture.

The problem started when we 'nationalised' families and in many cases emancipated them as well.

It has been suggested we will repent at our leisure for helping to destroy families in this country. The family is the basic social unit and you need it functioning for any form of state to work coherently. We will have to admit the state has let us down badly, education being just one area.

We need to start supporting the family and then it will carry out things like teaching finances. Just like it used to do in the 50's and 60's .. .

Would I be starting from here?

Many young people cannot add up, or carry out mental arithmetic. Financial concepts will be a bridge too far without the basics and family support

Their family and the state have failed them

We certainly used to teach some form of finance; my father 'matriculated' at the age of 15 and had studied book-keeping at school (I saw some of the books and they were quite difficult for a dumb person like myself even though I was then a graduate with a science degree).

Instead of going to University my father was articled to a firm of chartered accountants. My grandfather had to pay the then huge sum of £500 and this was reimbursed instead of a salary over the five years at something like seven shillings and sixpence per week.

My father was allowed to take his finals early because of WW2.

He qualified when he was still just 20 years old and believed himself to be the youngest qualified chartered accountant in the world.

He generally disliked his own profession and quickly went into the world of 'filthy commerce' but that's another story!