'Nice to see a politician listening' blog discussion

Kimitatsu

Personally I think this should be a cross party initiative - I dont think there are any political parties that would disagree with the outcomes which would be achieved from this type of added subject to the curriculum.

I am conversant with the every child matters document but it does not take into account those children who do not engage well with "traditional" education. The business entereprise schemes you talk about are aimed at those who will already engage in these types of activities and will be able to extrapolate the experience out to help them in their daily lives.

How often do I talk about what an APR is only to hear "I always wondered what one of those was but didnt want to seem stupid if I asked" and yet it has a very real bearing on someone's financial understanding and economic wellbeing. Understanding that a doorstep loan company will charge you 185% APR that year has a huge impact on someone who is on benefits, and walking them through the scenario of being on £262 a month for a single person, and paying back £285 for a £100 loan is more than just a "discreet lesson in financial management".

I have two children one of primary school age and one of secondary school age. Neither of them have had any financial education though school, and the eldest is very much scientifically based so would be ideally suited to to that arena. Both have done the "running a company" project for a week in primary school, and yet neither of them relate it to how it could affect their lives. Testing a wants versus needs game that I devised for a module however stimulated huge discussions about what was important to people and how you could make savings to afford the things you needed.

In our household we term it under the heading of "life skills", that being something which everyone needs to understand but which is rarely taught in schools. So should the curriculum change? Absolutely! This should be embedded learning across the curriculum as important as any other basic skill and would hopefully identify those groups who would benefit from further links to the community such as credit unions.

robbyj64

All very true Martin and of course pupils should learn all those things you mention. We've all been to school and in a way, we all think we are experts in how the school day should be organised, politicians included. History tells us that when politicians intervene in education, chaos soon follows. Ruth Kelly's out of hand rejection of the Tomlinson report into 14-16 curricula still sticks in my throat.

In reality curriculum design is hugely complex and should be left to the experts. When it works well, pupils leave school with all the skills they need to get on in 21st century society, and that includes financial awareness. We could also make a strong case for religious tolerance and anti extremism to be taught in schools, which arguably is the biggest threat to society at the moment.

You'd have been delighted to see what I saw recently in a school maths lesson. Students had prepared a group presentation on 'credit cards, the good the bad and the ugly', complete with an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. Lots of the backdrops and illustrations were from the MSE website, with quotes such as 'Martin says...'. They then used this as coursework.

MSE_Martin

robbyj64 wrote: »

All very true Martin and of course pupils should learn all those things you mention. We've all been to school and in a way, we all think we are experts in how the school day should be organised, politicians included. History tells us that when politicians intervene in education, chaos soon follows. Ruth Kelly's out of hand rejection of the Tomlinson report into 14-16 curricula still sticks in my throat.

In reality curriculum design is hugely complex and should be left to the experts. When it works well, pupils leave school with all the skills they need to get on in 21st century society, and that includes financial awareness. We could also make a strong case for religious tolerance and anti extremism to be taught in schools, which arguably is the biggest threat to society at the moment.

You'd have been delighted to see what I saw recently in a school maths lesson. Students had prepared a group presentation on 'credit cards, the good the bad and the ugly', complete with an Ennio Morricone soundtrack. Lots of the backdrops and illustrations were from the MSE website, with quotes such as 'Martin says...'. They then used this as coursework.

I am indeed delighted to see that. Yet while this case sounds good, i presume thats a teacher being proactive - and I know there are many equally brilliant proactive people in education across the UK.

Yet I spoke in a school recently and asked teachers and pupils if they'd been given any info about financial education - and the answer was no. The same when I spoke at the LSE for new students, most had no consumer or personal finance education.

I think we're hung up on curriculum issues here. My point is there should be compulstory consumer finance education in schools; not necessarily that it should be done in the curriculum. For example in the fortnight after GCSEs when the pupils tend to be still at school but doing nothing. Why not take that time to teach them real world finance and student loans.

Martin

BernardM

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Hi In my public capacity, I support this policy and any party that supports it. As you'll see in my earlier polticial blog - im actually talking to all the major parties at the moment

Martin

Hello Martin,
What did they have to say about the bank charges campaign.
You said you were disappointed with MPs over this, did any smaller political parties out there support it.