Back in
February the government announced a new draft National Curriculum for England
that would see financial education embedded in both mathematics and in
citizenship education, making financial capability a statutory part of the
curriculum for the first time. The draft programme of study for citizenship
would include the functions and uses of money, the importance of personal
budgeting, money management and a range of financial products and services in
Key Stage 3, and wages, taxes, credit, debt, financial risk and a range of more
sophisticated financial products and services in Key Stage 4.
This week,
following a period of consultation, Michael Gove published the revised
Curriculum and the financial education has been further strengthened by the
inclusion of 'risk management' into Key Stage 3 and 'income and expenditure,
credit and debt, insurance, savings, pensions' at Key Stage 4. Recognition is
due to pfeg for its work in pushing for this enhanced content.
Providing
education that allows children to leave school with financial literacy can only
bode well for the credit profession in the years ahead if it means consumers
are more financially aware. None of us wants to see people in financial
difficulty through ignorance because they weren't sufficiently aware or
informed.
In my blog
last week I called for the OFT to ensure that affordability tests were
genuinely being carried out by payday lenders to avoid the vulnerable being
caught in a vortex of indebtedness. An interesting discussion has unfolded in
response on the ICM Credit Community LinkedIn group (you can find it here) I
don't agree with all the comments - simply outlawing payday lending could carry
serious unintended consequences involving a growth in back street loan sharks,
for example - but action in the short term is needed and, for the longer term,
education will also play its part. Now we need to make sure teachers are
provided with adequate tools to deliver the proposed curriculum content.
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