Why more is needed to teach kids whether they are in the red or black

Our expert stresses the need for further financial education during these uncertain times.

Innovation is not a word we hear nearly enough in financial services. But financial education is getting its moment in the spotlight as the home-schooling wheels keep on burning for the vast majority of young people – but are things as Dandy as they could be?

On the last day of My Money Week (Friday 12 June), the Bank of England, in collaboration with Beano and Tes (formerly known as the Times Educational Supplement) announced Money and Me – a 12-lesson course on financial literacy for children aged 5-11.

As Dennis the Menace would say, it’s pretty ‘blam!.’ But we need more than a kid in a red and black jumper to teach our kids whether they are in the red or in the black – and that goes for Minnie the Minx too.

We need to follow it up, pea shooter and catapult style, with some joined up thinking and Government led, bold policy work and promotion – otherwise great work like this risk preaching to the school choir.

There are some brilliant dots that the Government could join up. The London Stock Exchange launched a new financial education hub, too, and there is lots of great work being done by MyBank and The London Institute of banking and Finance. 

interactive investor are trying to do our part too, for example with our Family Financial Education Award (which is still open – please get involved and support it). But there needs to be a centralised push from Government to make a meaningful impact – now more than ever.

Even before the coronavirus induced, cataclysmic economic shock, consumer debt (excluding mortgages) has risen 11% to £119 billion in the two years to March 2018 according to the most recent figures by the Office for National Statistics.

While debt is not inherently bad, knowledge on how to manage it is vital – especially in the age of ‘buy now pay later’ retailing. We know that children worry about money – and whilst there is no magic wand, demystifying how it works can help children manage it better when they are finally in the driving seat.

With teachers and parents working at breakneck speed to keep the education wheels turning (and mouths fed), personal finance education might seem the last thing the Government, teachers and parents need to grapple with.

But money management deserves just as much of a place on the curriculum as PE and Food Tech. It’s hotly debated whether millennials have it tougher than baby boomers – houses are more expensive now, but many of our parents had to contend with crippling interest rates.

It is a subject that spawned a long list of verbatims in our Great British Retirement Survey last year, with respondents divided. 

These are worrying times. Many parents (me included) are worrying that our kids might have it even tougher we do – and that’s just on the economic side of things. Even those parents lucky enough to offer financial help don’t necessarily want to compromise their own financial futures in the process – or curtail ambition, either.

Good lessons in money management could well end up being worth more than any financial gift. 

Financial education needs to be made a standalone subject in both primary and secondary schools, it needs more time in classroom, and better guidance, support and tools for teachers. 

The big priority for now is obviously getting children back to normal – or as normal as life can be right now.

But at a time when most have been learning from the kitchen table for months, when they go back, there must surely be room for more home spun, real life, every day, lessons about money. That really would be blam!