Children to have personal finance lessons - it's about bloody time!!

[Heqet]

here

Good idea! It amazes me how many adults can't do even a simple budget or cash flow forecast.

Children should also get an introduction to commerce, economics and politics too!

Probably because they can't do it themselves?

dh is already teaching ds1 the basics of commerce! and they both have bank accounts and we are helping them to learn to manage their money, but I think a great many people, who have never been taught themselves, just have no clue where to start.

The article says "could be" rather thn "shall be/will be" an awful lot.

I'm scepticl. Who is going to be teaching the kids financial savvy? Because the last time I looked teachers were just as likely to have a mountain of personal debt as the next person.

It does need to be done, but done properly. Reading the debt thread, there were so mny with huge debts that had run them up, then consolidated and ended up with more.

Its those sort of behaviours that need to be looked at in my opinion. Credit is not bad thing if it is used properly, but most people don't get that it seems.

This is just PR fluff. Expect more of this by all the parties ahead of the election.

We had to have some finance lessons in school as part of personal and social education 15 years ago. They were useless then and will be useless now.

How about teaching basic maths properly instead? The number of kids leaving primary school who can't do basic arithmetic is shocking.

budgeting is maths.

The problem with schools is they teach children to pass tests, they don't teach children.

It is the fault of the government for making test results the be all and end all. It doesn't matter if the children are educated, as long as those things that get the ticks in the boxes and form the league tables are taken care of.

Some schools do nothing but train the children to pass tests, because that's what they're judged on and that's all that matters - if they don't get the test results they are 'failing'.

It's a terrible situation.

There was a cartoon (drawing). Set in russia. The order from on high was that the target of 10 tonnes of nails must be met. So they made one ten tonne nail.

Useless, pointless, but it was a nail - the weight was 10 tonnes, so it was a success. They met their target.

Education in this country is our ten tonne nail.

to be fair it is hard to teach what you dont know but i have got my nearly 5oy budgeting and he has pocket money. It is fantastic cos it is a case of "mum can i have ....?" "Have you got any pocket money?/if you spend your pocket money on this then it will take longer to get that." takes a lot of the hassel out of it when we end up in toy sections/shops. But as i only give him 40p/week ie 10p for each year of life(thanks to some suggestions from a previous pocket money thread) it takes a long time to save up for anything. Ds's greatgrandma gives the kids a £1 a week but they tend to get it in a big lump for something they are saving for or for holiday money.

Itsmeolord - it depends what you count as critical debt. i have no overdraft and no other debt but do have a huge student loan. so if that is counted as critical debt then yes i have a lot if it is counted and inevitable debt (eg like a mortagage) then no i dont.

I'm talking about loans, credit cards, store cards, catlogues and unmanageable mortgages.

By unmanageable I mean the type that were taken out on the basis of, we can have rather than we can afford.

Student debt is I think slightly different.

It's useless trying to manage income and expenditure if you can't get the basic figures right.

As for credit cards and mortgages, it is almost impossible to calculate the interest you will be paying accurately without going through so many hoops that it's not worth it.

Things are better now than in 2004, when it was hard work even for a Cambridge mathematician: www.guardian.co.uk/science/2004/mar/18/thisweekssciencequestions3.

However, I came across this when I was trying to calculate the APR when we remortgaged the house three years ago:

www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/business_leaflets/consumer_credit/oft144.pdf

Just read the "assumptions" starting on page 17 and goggle with amazement.