MSE News: Prime Minister responds on financial education in schools

Butti

bigmomma051204 wrote: »

Personally i believe it could be made statutory and be covered in PSHE AND Maths.

I work in a Children's Centre and run a group for Young Parents. Granted, the following is not a typical example BUT it certainly isnt unknown! There is a girl, aged 23 who attends the group who has just declared herself bankrupt. She has run up massive credit card, catalogue and phone bills and also had massive utility and rent arrears. Now, i wonder whether in this day and age which would have been more beneficial in mathematics at school - long division with decimals OR learning the tools to give her a foundation for knowing how to manage her money..........

They could use Virgin Credit cards as an example. The interest on the back is calculated per month rather than per year. This very handily disguises the change after the 0% period up to around a 32% APR. On the statement it appears as something like a 2.33% monthly APR. Much more palatable.

BeanP

daska wrote: »

Actually I think Cameron's response translates as "Why on earth would we do this, my mates make a lot of money out of the financially illiterate..."

Which ties in nicely-ish with :-

David_Cameron wrote:

I am also of the view that parents can play an equally crucial role in helping young people to become financially aware in their day-to-day lives.

I dare say Ma and Pa Cameron might have had the education, expertise and/or experience to do this, but does he really think the people that need it most, e.g. impoverished parents trying to bring up kids, have both the financial and teaching expertise to do this ?

Dare I suggest that if they did, then they would probably be a lot less likely to be impoverished...

Red_sky

What a pallava for getting something taught at school which will be useful. It's so obvious that teaching kids financial education at school would be useful rather than just basic maths which most kids have no interest in what-so-ever. Teach them something that's going to be useful to them. That long-winded and indecisive reply from DC is exactly why this country is in a mess because the poeple who govern this country just cannot make common sense decisions without somebody producing a report somewhere that costs millions of pounds of wasted tax payers' money and usually about 3 years to produce. Why couldn't DC just say yes, we will make it compulsory. Make a decision for once, it's so obviously the right one to make. I think the problem lies behind the fact that the teachers aren't clever enough to know how to teach it. Mine certainly weren't. I got taught such rubbish at school most of which didn't prepare me for the real world after leaving school. It's about time they started to focus on teaching kids things that would be useful to them like financial education. What a load of long-winded guff that was in DC's letter. It's no wonder it takes them so long to make any positive changes when they write such non-sensical, indecisive, time wasting clap trap like that. What Martin is looking for is a simple 'Yes we will make it compulsory', not all the reasons why you can't. Or won't.

susie12jod

I have 2 teenagers who are average at maths and know a bit about being money savvy but there is lots more to learn. I agree with Martin in that some kids who don't like maths would really benefit from this as they are learning maths in a fun way and it is all to do with real day to day life whereas a lot of maths is not.

People don't have to know about 'maths' like they teach it in schools but would benefit greatly from being able to budget, search for better deals, mortgages, loans, credit cards and borrowing etc. In some families where parents don't know much about money management if the kids were taught in schools they could help their parents out.

It makes perfect sense to make this compulsory but its always the same, when the majority of the public agree something, the government goes the other way or won't commit !!

JimmyTheWig

Lotus-eater wrote: »

What should they drop to teach financial education?

We were taught plasticwork at school. Yes, how to make things out of plastic. Involving all sorts of different machinery.

Now, I doubt many people from my class have such machinery at home. And I doubt many of them have gone on to use such machinery at work without proper training.
So there's something they could drop to make way for it.

Red_sky

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

We were taught plasticwork at school. Yes, how to make things out of plastic. Involving all sorts of different machinery.

Now, I doubt many people from my class have such machinery at home. And I doubt many of them have gone on to use such machinery at work without proper training.
So there's something they could drop to make way for it.

Yes, I got taught how to plough a field horizontally (social studies - the agricultural revolution) and other such rubbish as religeous education neither of these subjects ever became useful to me so there's another 2 subjects you could drop. There were many more which were a complete waste of my time and energy at school.

Red_sky

It's a bit like the meeting Martin had with DC in September to do with the rising cost of energy bills. What did DC do then. Absolutely nothing. Just brushed under the carpet. Until next March/April when we get hit by huge great big price increases once again.

MartinWickham

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

We were taught plasticwork at school.

Red_sky wrote: »

Yes, I got taught how to plough a field horizontally (social studies - the agricultural revolution)

But these two comments typically show that our society has not understood the proper function of the EDUCATION system. It is to EDUCATE, not just to provide a narrow training of what we think children might need to know in ten or sixty years time; teachers don't know what children are going to need to know in ten or sixty years time, particularly regarding financial issues.

We need to provide an education system which teaches a broad range of knowledge and provides a wide base of experiences, which inevitably will include examples of a monetary nature. An appropriately educated individual won't need to be taught specific facts about the ever-changing financial marketplace, because they will apply their intelligence and broad education to make their own astute judgements appropriate to their circumstances and needs.

Of course, a good level of mathematics education is still essential, but this is not dependant in any way on 'financial education', whatever that is.

1duckweed

I think we are talking of financial education too late if we are putting into secondary education. It is much simpler to start in Primary by looking at percentages and looking how much a loan cost which would not be difficult to add to maths. My son learned a lot about the futility of gambling through maths and working out probabilities in primary. If we start early and then build on it at secondary we would get a deeper understanding. Failing that possibly we coule get the BBC to take it on with programmes specifically aimed at teenagers. They have already had some excellent programmes with young adults. Also a course on the things you need to know when you start work such as your rights as an employee. Dealing with tax office, job centre, DSS etc.. My Son has hit 18 and left college and suddenly he has all these official forms to sign. Even things like registering at a dentist is quite confusing to him.

MartinWickham

On this forum I accept I might be the only person to hold contrary views. Nevertheless, my belief is that Martin Lewis' 'financial education' has been misguided from the beginning, and David Cameron has clearly had the benefit of good advice.

Martin Lewis seems to have assumed that he knows what the 'picture' of compulsory financial education will look like if it is rolled out. The murky picture I envisage is of the carnage that will exist after the resource-heavy financial industry has infiltrated the education at the lowest levels to promote it’s own greedy ends.

I haven't noticed individuals of the teaching profession as being particularly financially savvy; therefore, this is not a group that are natural candidates to take on a financial education role.

We DO need to teach competently, and the low expectation and narrowness of school mathematics teaching propagated by the National Curriculum currently is abysmal. However, the inadequacy of the National Curriculum does not justify the extension of further, damaging compulsion into schools, even of 'financial education'. It might give us a few clues that nationally we need to find a better route to instigate a massive and badly needed upgrade of mathematics education. This IS properly within the remit of teachers and the education system, and it would more properly equip individuals to understand and deal appropriately with their financial needs.