27th February 2013 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Since I left home to survive in the real world alone and un-mothered, I have been forced to come to terms with the baffling world of finance. Tax, loans, insurance, banking…you name it; I’ve tried to understand it. It is perhaps one of the most complicated and unyielding things for a numerate-illiterate person such as myself to become acquainted with and I pray silently that a the God of Finance will look kindly upon me and give me a helping hand.
Gove has announced that his new school curricula will contain financial education which will be embedded into both mathematics lessons and citizenship. According to a report done by moningsavingexpert.com for the Centre of Economics, financial illiteracy in the UK costs the country £3.4 billion a year. This is a staggering amount and I would be happy for my future children to receive a little extra financial education if it meant that this money could be better spent elsewhere.
However, even though I hated maths at school and was much more settled with my nose in a good book, I can still get by within today’s financial world. Perhaps those who are costing the country so much wasted money, are those who are too lazy to try and understand the financial world. I am the first person to say that such a world is often created only for those who can be bothered to understand it, but in order to keep on top of your finances this is an absolute must.
The new programme for citizenship includes plans to equip all pupils with the financial skills they will need to manage their money and budget for future financial expenditure. This all seems to make perfectly good sense to me and is certainly something I could have done with to arm myself as I try desperately to understand the complexities of our consumer economy.