We need your thoughts on Finance lessons being dropped from Schools Bill

[CatherineHMumsnet]

There is another thread debating sex education and home schooling elements of the PSHE being dropped from the Schools Bill here www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/942891-Fear-for-your-children-39-s-education-under-the-Tories but we had an interesting email in from finance expert Martin Lewis pointing out that the removal of PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education)from the Schools Bill also means that compulsory financial education has been dropped too.

What do you reckon? Do you agree as Lewis puts it: 'We're a nation that educates our youth into debt when they go to university, but never educates them about debt.'

Martin Congratulations on such early success!!

I asked because I've just started to volunteer for them. I'm planning be a Business Advisor in September (maybe helping the next Martin Lewis) but until then I'm volunteering on their 'Learn to Earn' course. here. Which covers some basic personal finance.

Sounds good JSB

Thanks to all of you for listening.

Going to defect back to my own site on this now.

Have a good weekend

Martin

Also think there should be education in Tax - What kind of taxes we have,how we pay, why we pay, what happens if we don't pay etc... Would you call that Civics.

Following on from Martin, we've just joined forces with Moneysavingexpert to launch a joint petition site www.financialeducationpetition.com where you can petition whoever ends up in No 10 in May to restore financial education to the national curriculum.

Good idea will check it out

Almost 14,000 people have now signed the petition, which is great news.

It's about to close at which point Moneysavingexpert will be contacting Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, and both David Cameron and Nick Clegg, to see what their plans are to get financial education back on the curriculum.

So - last chance - if you haven't already signed up, do it today.

I realise that this is an old thread, but missed it the first time round.

PSHCE is currently a non-statutory part of the national curriculum, which results in schools picking and choosing those elements that they feel their pupils would most benefit from (the PSHCE curriculum is very broad). I think its right that schools should have some autonomy, and many of the issues can be taught implicitly or through other subjects.

Most primary schools use the DARE project to teach children to avoid alcohol/tobacco/drugs with questionable long-term results, why does anyone think that a few lessons on financial management would prevent irresponsible borrowing?

Our local secondary school decided to make this subject a compulsory GCSE option and my niece is now learning about stuff that has no relevance to her whatsoever.

Personally I think it's a shame that so many people are prepared to throw up their hands in horror and lobby the government for compulsory finance education, but not for compulsory sex education (i.e from the age of 5, without parental right to withdraw their kids).

Only just seen this thread but I agree with custy so I'm going to quote her all over again

"educate the parents ffs. i keep banging and banging on about this - but it is WRONG WRONG WRONG to parent by proxy through schools.

please keep schools the institutions which teach our children traditional academic subjects.

if we are a society which needs to parent via ourschool system there is something seriously wrong with it.

universal parenting classes on reciept of child benefit is the way to go.

to many children leave the school system without even the basic skill to read more than a page or simple maths.

make all our children, children who have basic numeracy and literacy before they leave the school system and leave the bloody teachers alone and let them get on with it.

stop wasting public money on this kind of farce and direct more into the education system."

I think the comments here are really interesting - and personally feel that although a parent can try and teach their children about finances - that's on the assumption, they themselves understand finances.

In a country where statistics show the older you get, the more debt you get into - it's unlikely, as a whole, we can teach our children the right financial lessons - and that actually - school is the best place for such essential education to be taught.

New statistics from ClearDebt,confirmed last week that the average 18-21 year old is already starting life on the debt ladder with an average debt of £8,195 - which accounts of a whopping 91% of their earnings from part or full time jobs. If this is what our children are doing based on the example we have set them, surely a financial education in school is proven to be essential?

To read more on this report see: goo.gl/fb/nhxtP

For every child who benefits from lessons about financial management, there are ten more who already know this stuff.

I like the fact that teachers can currently judge which aspects of PSHCE will most benefit their class, and don't like the idea of it being a compulsory subject at all. I don't understand why competent children have to learn irrelevant (to them) lifeskills when they could be doing proper academic subjects.

Jax76 - is it possible that those statistics include student loans? These are taken out to pay for tuition/living expenses whilst in higher education and are not repayable until earning over £15k. I always think that these shouldn't be lumped in with feckless borrowing on credit cards, unsecured loans etc because they are both unavoidable and affordable.

I'd be amazed if good teachers weren't already using real-life finance examples in lessons. My primary school age son is often doing maths homework based on money examples. And at secondary level you could use a credit card bill, mortgage or a savings account as illustration for a lesson on compound interest. ... if you owe £2000 on a CC, the APR is 18% and you pay off the minimum amount of 1% of the balance each month how long will it take to clear the debt?... etc.

Trouble is that, however good your base knowledge of finance is, it doesn't necessarily stop you spending money you don't have. That's down to personal discipline and values, not mathematics.