Why should financial literacy be taught in schools? 12 reasons why your school should teach it👩🏫 –
Introduction 👋
Learning financial literacy can be one of the most difficult and stressful parts of becoming a grown-up.
As an adult, there are so many different financial skills to learn like:
- Managing taxes 🏛️
- Budgeting 💷
- Debt management 🌪️
- Saving 📈
- Banking 🏦
- Credit management 💳
- Investing 📊
- Retirement planning 🧓
- Insurance management ☔
- Setting financial goals 🏆
It’s common for people to wonder, “why didn’t school teach me all financial literacy skills”?
Whilst there might be a lot of reasons of why schools don’t teach life skills, we’ve put together a list of the main reasons why schools should consider teaching financial literacy skills.
1. It’s what students want to learn📜
Students today are increasingly vocal about wanting to learn practical life skills. 🔊
By offering financial education, schools can cater to the demands and preferences of their student body. 🙌
There has been plenty of research to demonstrate the appetite for life skills in schools, such as:
- 72% of young people said they wanted to learn more about money and finance in school with just 15% citing school as their main source of financial education. (London Institute of Finance and Banking 2021/22 Young Persons Money Index)
- 87% of British people don’t feel like they were adequately prepared for life as an adult — saying they weren’t taught the life skills they needed before leaving full-time education. (Metro News)
- 81% of young people said that they worry about money. (London Institute of Finance and Banking 2021/22 Young Persons Money Index)
- In Wales in 2019, the Welsh Youth Parliament created a comprehensive report to the government, campaigning to have life skills education prioritised for young people.
2. Re-engaging disengaged students with education 🤝
It is common for students to disengage from school due to uncertainty of how lessons will help them in real life. 🤷♀️
For example, a student might complain that they’re unlikely to use “Pythagoras’ Theorem”, bunsen burners, or the biology of a leaf in real life. 🍃
Whilst a lot of people may not directly encounter these challenges, they teach transferable skills like problem solving, numeracy, and literacy. 🔀
Unfortunately, this way of teaching people new skills is quite abstract. 🥴
It is a lot easier for a student to appreciate the value of learning how solve real-world problems, like paying taxes! 💰
This makes life skills lessons an important tool for re-engaging students who have disengaged from education. Life skills education can make learning more relevant and engaging for students, providing a bridge between the classroom and the real world.
For example, a lot of students don’t know how much money they can earn, from the qualifications they’re working towards! 🤷♀️
Even just one careers lesson explaining salary expectations from different qualifications, can help students to understand the financial benefits of gaining qualifications and re-engage them.
3. Preventing financial hardship 🌪️
Teaching financial literacy in schools can help prevent students from falling into debt traps and experiencing financial hardship later in life.
Understanding concepts like interest rates, credit scores, and debt management enables individuals to make informed decisions and avoid financial pitfalls.
4. Social mobility🚀
Learning financial literacy skills have the potential to level the playing field, and give students from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to improve their circumstances.
Teaching students about topics like budgeting, taxes, and debt, can have a huge impact on the financial future of students. 💰
By teaching skills such as financial literacy and job preparation, schools can empower students from all backgrounds to pursue their dreams. ✨
5. Parents don’t feel prepared 🤷♀️
Whilst a lot of people might argue that it is the job of parents to teach life skills, lots of parents don’t feel prepared to teach them.
According to The Independent, nearly half of parents don’t feel equipped to teach their children important life skills.
Schools can bridge this gap by providing comprehensive life skills education, alleviating the concerns of parents who want the best for their children.
6. Standing out as an institution 🌟
Schools that stand out by offering comprehensive financial education lessons can enhance their reputation and become more appealing to students and their families.
This can lead to increased enrollment and support for the school. 🙋♀️
7. Improved student behaviour 😇
Students can often be disruptive in lessons due to a lack of appreciation of the value that teachers can add to their lives. 👎
In addition, students are often unaware of the challenges of adulthood, and how school can support them towards becoming independent adults. 🪜
Life skills lessons can help students to understand the value that teachers can have towards helping them achieve their goals, and encourage them to take school more seriously, reducing behavioural issues within lessons. 👍
8. Promoting financial independence 🙋♀️
Financially literate individuals are more likely to achieve financial independence and long-term stability.
By teaching students about topics such as income generation, financial planning, and retirement savings, schools lay the foundation for students to build a secure financial future for themselves. 🔮
9. Promoting economic stability ⚖️
A population with strong financial literacy skills contributes to overall economic stability and growth. 📈
People who manage their finances responsibly are less likely to rely on government assistance programs, reducing the burden on public resources and fostering a more prosperous society. 💳
10. There’s increased flexibility in the curriculum 🏄♀️
In a lot of education systems teachers are being given more flexibility around what they teach.
School curriculums are becoming more and more flexible, enabling educators to tailor their lessons to their students’ needs, and their local landscape. 🗺️
This means that some teachers can start to write their own curriculum of learning for their students. 📝
Giving teachers more flexibility can help them to make sure that learning is:
- relevant and useful for students 👍
- tailored to the geographical area the students are living in 🧵
- making use of opportunities for students in their local area 🗺️
- more personalised for students and their ambitions 🪞
A lot of teachers believe that financial education should be taught in schools, and can use this flexibility to create more opportunities for students to learn life skills in their learning plans.
In countries such as Wales, United Kingdom, individual schools are even being empowered to write their own curriculums, making each schools’ provision unique and tailored to their area. ✍️
This offers a lot of opportunity for schools to incorporate life skills into their curriculums, to meet the needs of their students.
Incorporating life skills into the curriculum has never been easier for schools to implement, making now a great time to start providing financial literacy lessons.
11. Increased availability of free resources 📚
More than ever, there are free resources available to help teach life skills.
The Grown-Up School provides 100+ completely free grown-up lessons and free worksheets to help learn life skills!
There is also support and resources available from places like:
- Charities
- The internet – you can learn so much from researching online!
- Youtube videos
- Podcasts
- TV series
- Local businesses
- Motivational speakers
- Banks – financial education programmes
12. Improved post-school attainment 🏆
Schools that provide financial education support their students to succeed not only academically but also in their personal and professional lives. 👨💼
This success can contribute to the school’s reputation and legacy, and encourage positive relationships with past students. 🤝
More research 🕵️♀️
In addition to there being more resources available to learn life skills, there is also more research demonstrating the desire and need to learn them.
This includes studies such as:
- Age-Specific Life Skills Education in School: A Systematic Review
- Significance Of Life Skills Education
- The Status of Life Skill Education in Secondary Schools -An Evaluative Study
Conclusion 👍
So that’s it!
There are lots of different reasons why financial education should be taught in schools, such as:
- It’s what students want to learn📜
- Re-engaging disengaged students with education 🤝
- Preventing financial hardship 🌪️
- Social mobility🚀
- Parents don’t feel prepared 🤷♀️
- Standing out as an institution 🌟
- Improved student behaviour 😇
- Promoting financial independence 🙋♀️
- Promoting economic stability ⚖️
- There’s increased flexibility in the curriculum 🏄♀️
- Increased availability of free resources 📚
- Improved post-school attainment 🏆
Hopefully this article has helped you to understand better why schools should teach financial literacy skills.
If you know any friends or family members who might benefit from learning about why schools should teach financial literacy skills, share this post with them!
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