Sign Up for Financial Education in Schools

The first time i read it read I agreed with the basics of @MarinSLewis e-petition, but, on reflection, I think it’s actually very damaging to society that we should be pushing this right now and ignoring the real disaster in education – that one in five of our teenagers leave school unable to read and write properly or do basic sums.

Of course it would be ideal for every child to have basic financial skills. But it is utterly wrong to take time, money and focus out of the school curriculum whilst one in five of our teenagers leaves school without the skills to understand things they read or even do basic percentage calculations.That’s not a “nice to have” – its a basic responsibility that we should all give our children the tools they need to survive..

Ok, if only one from five has literacy and numeracy problems, then four out of five pupils could find financial education useful. But that’s no reason, in my book, not to put all the focus, energy and resource we can into ensuring that basic literacy and numeracy is not just a right, but is actually a truth – something we guarantee to every child.

Lack of basic skills is not just a waste: It’s a criminal waste: we are tolerating a society where one in five of our young adults can’t get jobs and can’t function effectively. Thousands of these wind up in prison. Which is where most of our rioters came from.

Financial education is a useful luxury: Petitioning for it whilst we can’t make a fifth of our children fit to do anything other than fail is a monstrous mistake. What’s more, it’s attracting so much attention it is getting the government off the hook about the need to give children the basic life skills that will change society for the better, for us all.

It may be too late for financial education to be useful anyway. Or in fact, any fact-based education that covers topics that keep changing. I believe what Martin wants, “to ensure every child in the country gets a basic understanding of personal finance & consumer rights before leaving school”, is not achievable – personal finance products and consumer rights are changing all the time. Personal finance is capable of generating all the press coverage it does and has as many “experts’ as it has, precisely because it is complex, demanding and changing. What hope for anyone who is taught about financial products and consumer rights in 2011 but doesn’t use that information until 2014, or later (especially if they are one of the20% that can’t do basic percentage calculations, let alone understand an APR).

We need basic skills. If we are to add to the learning burden, then it’s the skills needed to assess information in any aspect of life and to make judgments based on information that our children need. With that they can handle anything – they’ll have the best chance of personal success and the ability to be discerning citizens too.

As I said at the beginning, I don’t disagree with Mr Lewis’s call for financial eduction. I just don’t think it’s appropriate to do this until we can all read and write and add up.

I have started an epetition abou this: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/16527

Even if you decide to sign Martin’as “nice to have” please consider helping make a strong plea for what is really needed too.