MSE News: Government responds to compulsory financial education petition

tagq2

bigbloke45 wrote: »

Most people I have met have not been very interested in saving for retirement

Most people entering the workplace since WW2 were of the understanding that you pay your NICs toward pension in retirement. The only people "not very interested in saving for retirement" are those who want to avoid or evade NICs, or who don't want to work much before state pension age.

Micro-economics is a reasonable thing to study in school, if a bit wishy-washy. Inculcating you with the desire to work within the system in the Official way is the stuff of regimes less free than this one. Anyway, if we want to make a killing, we have two necessary and sufficient lessons for success for which we thank Getty and Brannan:

(i) If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem;
(ii) During a gold rush, sell shovels.

Real work is so... early '70s.

Pincher

What about making English and Mathematics compulsory subjects, too?

They already are? So how come there are so many illiterate and innumerate people out there?

As the M5 pile up shows, most people are really not equipped mentally to deal with modern life. Whether it was fog or smoke, they will tailgate so they didn't have a chance to react. You can put everyone through a COMPULSORY tailgating training course, they will be leaving the car park with a mobile phone in one hand, complaining what a waste of time it was.

I also wonder what this hypothetical financial education teacher will say to this question:

Pupil: "Miss, miss, how do they set up an annuity when you give them the £100,000?"
Miss Moneypenny: "They buy government bonds with the £100,000, which will pay a fixed interest every six months."
Pupil: "But what if the government runs out of money, and can't pay the interest any more. You know, like Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal?"
Miss Moneypenny: "Then the insurance company has to pay out from their own money."
Pupil: "But they can't pay out forever, can they?"
Miss Moneypenny: "Don't worry, the governement will bail them out."
Pupil: "But the government is the one that ran out of money, Miss."

Caddyman

I mentioned this in a previous thread concerning this very subject some time back, but in 1982, I with about 10 of my peers were taken out mainstream maths at my Comprehensive school because we just couldn't handle the mumbo jumbo of the wider math syllabus. What we got, was a full two year, comprehensive instruction in financial management. I left school at 16 with no qualifications other than an English 'O' level and the superb teachings of a top quality maths tutor in how to manage my money.

I consider myself hugely lucky. I have never been out of work and I have no financial problems whatsoever (I put this down solely to the efforts of my tutor all those years ago and my own self restraint in not living beyond my means). Put simply, financial education works and imho, every child should receive the benefit of it.

oldvicar

I was surprised by the article - I had (obviously wrongly) presumed that the campaign was to get financial education to be automatically included as part of the PSHE agenda - ie something useful but without examination/qualification at the end.

Perhaps what is needed is more "applied mathematics" within the maths curriculum. Not just sums for the sake of them but at the starter level things like "how many first class stamps can you buy for £3" .... and "how much change would you get". Leading up to "If a person earns £x, and inflation is y% per year, etc etc, how big a pension pot will they need to retire on half wages at age 85" ... "and what proportion of salary do they need to save each year if they stat saving aged 30" etc..

Deepfatfriar

I agree with the above post.

When I left school I knew how to calculate simple interest and compound interest by hand, there were no calculators.

In my view such education for MP's should mandatory. How many of them have actually had a proper job and had to budget on a fixed and possibly declining income ?

How on earth can Danny Alexander be Chief Secretary to the Treasury when all he has really done is be Press Officer to the Cairngorm National Park.

Our country is highly in debt thanks to ill informed and even iller equiped politicians.

Who could not calculate the impact of removing the 10% tax rate. It was not school kids but MP's including Balls.

Our country is in dire straits yet we can borrow over £7 Billion per annum to give away.

Sorry Miss says little Charlie , I am know I already owe you loads but can I borrow a lot more to give to my mate !!!!

Gordon Brown , possibly the worst Chancellor never had a real job yet fiddled and burned over the Treasury books with the demonstrable results.

The_One_Who

Calculating interest is already part of maths, at least it was in my school. It comes under the 'percentages' lessons, I think. Maths already uses so-called practical examples as a way to try to get people thinking about the application of what they know.

My problem with this campaign is that it's all well and good to have an idea, but if you don't know how you can implement it without having a detrimental effect on everything else it's going to fail. Schools are expected to teach everything now, and the core subjects are suffering with some either being merged with others or getting done away with entirely.

Oldernotwiser

I cannot understand the point of financial education when at least half of any group won't even understand (much less be able to calculate!) basic percentages. Improve maths education rather than adding a separate subject.

Jilly_Stevens

neas wrote: »

I think calling it waffle is a little rude to be honest. Not to go against the grain. We reached 100k signatures, well done it will be debated and then if a good idea will be done.

Otherwise any viral campaign could get things through, doesn't gurantee it becomes formal just getting to 100k. Sorry to be negative but sometimes Martin comes out with the funniest of statements

Martin comes up with funny statements?! None so 'funny' (peculiar, not ha-ha) as considering it 'rude' to describe political waffle as... well, political waffle. Which is what this statement is.

That this government is completely out of touch with reality is revealed by the mention of the responsibility of parents to educate their children in matters financial. Have they no idea how ignorant of personal finance matters are many of those very parents? I despair.

Let's hope that our continued pressure and support from key people within both Houses of Parliament will not only force a debate but also lead to the necessary introduction of compulsory pf education for young people.

At the same time, perhaps the debate might educate those MPs and others who are unaware of how little 'ordinary' people know - because they have not had any pf education in the past: vicious circles.

The introduction of compulsory pf education is such a good idea because one spin off is that by educating the children, it sometimes gets useful information/advice to the parents.

Let's continue this campaign. We'll succeed in the end.