Financial literacy lessons will help kids plan for the future

Well done the British government for making financial literacy part of its new core education curriculum. But hold on, hasn’t it been part of the curriculum for 11 to 16-year-olds since 2014? Despite that, only about one-third of children recalled having learned about money at school and found it useful, says a recent survey.

Financial illiteracy has long been recognised as a serious problem – contributing to everything from people falling for scams to poorly managing the household budget to having insufficient retirement savings. But teaching financial literacy well has proven remarkably hard to do.

Jeroo Billimoria, a social entrepreneur who founded Aflatoun International, a non-profit that promotes financial literacy, has several lessons the government should heed as it improves the curriculum. First, start young – so, yes, the government is right to want financial literacy taught in primary school, but why not even earlier?

Second, embed financial education in enjoyable social activities. Don’t just make it part of maths class (for example, how to calculate compound interest). “Teach financial literacy by involving schoolchildren in planning a picnic or starting a school garden or buying stationery in bulk to save costs, or doing financial planning to buy a bike, or even starting a small business, so they see it as part of everyday life,” suggests Billimoria.

Nothing beats grounding education in reality by having children open a bank account, she adds, ideally alongside class visits to the bank. A selection of bank accounts for under-16s exist in Britain. But imagine if every child had one and learned to use it wisely as part of their education.

Having just agreed to provide accounts for homeless people, banks should take their reputation rebuilding further by partnering with government on a cost-effective account-based financial literacy programme for Britain's schoolchildren.

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