We need compulsory personal finance education in schools

The very businesses that have been dishing out vast amounts of money with little or no checking, creating most of the problems and cuts we all face now, are now the same businesses (read: banks) that are going into schools alongside regulators, consumer groups and those incharge of our education system, telling us that we need to educate our children on financial matters!

In case Which? have forgotten, we, the taxpayers, have funded a bailout of RBS (to name but one) to the tune of £45 BILLION (currently sitting on a predicted loss of £25 BILLION for the taxpayer that we will never get back).
According to the regulator, the Financial Services Authority, their report into RBS near collapse (printed only under duress when the parliamentary select committee ordered it to do so) revealed substantial failings in the inspection and light touch lack of regulation caused them to over stretch their borrowings and growth on the back of cheap borrowing.
The regulation at fault came from the Hampton report in March 2005, which consulted only “stakeholders” ie, businesses and banks themselves.
Banks influenced the regulation that failed and caused one of the biggest financial catastrophes in history.

“PFEG, working with supporters from the financial services industry”
Is a campaign coming (with self proclaimed expert in saving money) from Which? to let those in the financial industry into schools to educate our children?
Barclays, a bank that has admitted telling lies in the setting of the Libor, is already “giving advice” to teenagers on how to handle their finances!

Is it any wonder that no banks are prosecuted, no banks have their consumer credit license removed, no bank has even lost it’s “compliant” status (and all the light regulation benefits that come with it) with the FSA, when consumer groups are “working with” the very businesses/regulators that have failed the people.

The idea that financial organisations that have taken money from taxation (cuts to benefits and services and increased taxation for my family) to pay for their own lack of financial knowledge, will now be going into schools alongside consumer groups and a financial journalist, to educate my children on financial management is an insult.

Which? and consumer focus are getting too close to regulators and business.
Disgraceful!

Sorry – I used to teach personal finance (AKA budgeting) to our non exam children at my slum school – I could not teach it to the exam children because of timetable constraints – until Thatcher decided to dictate what I could actually teach via The National Curriculum.- This did NOT include personal finance to anyone. I had to teach exactly what Thatcher dictated – and OFSTED “inspected”. So please blame Government for the failure.

It would also help if teachers were not universally denigrated by those who don’t teach particularly Tory governments. During my 35 years of teaching in a slum school the number of Maths graduates teaching there was exactly TWO – because of poor pay and atrocious conditions – When Thatcher arrived – Maths and Science teachers left in droves why? Because there was far better working conditions and pay elsewhere. An English graduate for instance had far less chance of a worthwhile job in industry so English graduates were always well represented in all schools whereas there were always well paid Industrial vacancies for Maths and Science. – Science teachers IME were predominantly Biology Specialists. Interestingly I wanted to read Entomology and had an “intern-ship” with the British Natural History Museum until I found I would need a PhD before I was allowed to identify British Lepidoptera for visitors – So I turned to Physics then to Mathematics..

Before Thatcher there were actually useful jobs for the less academically inclined – Sadly She sold Britain off to her Tory Chummies and now we don’t have useful jobs even for graduates. Not to mention a £40,000 life time debt for the “privilege” of Studying.

I’m inclined to agree with ‘frugal ways’

If the incumbents are let loose in the classroom
all it will do is ensure the present mayhem continues on into the future.
Perhaps that’s the idea.

Nobody should teach children about money until they know what it is.
Richard Duncan says “it shouldn’t be made out of paper.” When the question
was put to Alan Greenspan he said “I don’t know. But we’re working on it.”
Others say our present system of issuing money as debt is nothing short of racketeering.

The tale of “Joseph’s Cent” is impressive.
1 cent invested in the year 0 at 5% interest compounded will be worth
500 billion balls of gold the weight of the Earth in the year 2000.
The student will be pleased to have got his sums right, and even more delighted
with the idea of receiving such a dividend. All you have to do is stick around.
But there’s another side to this coin. Who pays ?

An open minded, well informed teacher (Margrit Kennedy, Ellen Brown, plenty more)
could do wonders. But a syllabus based on promoting our current ideas of finance
would be a waste of time.

Hello Charlotte,

Margrit Kennedy has said :-

“In the late seventies, environmentalists were among the first to question
why economic reasoning demanded exponential growth returns that the planet
could never sustain. We discovered that there was a severe lack of understanding
of the basic facts about money amongst laymen as well as professional economists.
Remarkably little research had been devoted to the questions of money creation and functioning.

Up to this day, it remains almost taboo to discuss it, both for economists and governments,
as if the global monetary system was a fundemental given.
However, nothing could be further from the truth.”

If we are running a money system that is designed to ruin itself,
we should not tacitly teach it in the schools under the heading of
managing mortgages, credit cards, running a bank account, etc.
as if “the monetary system was a fundemental given.”

I take your point about Bob Diamond & Co. not actually being in the classroom.
But if their ideas are promoted there, we’re not going to improve much.

Some information worthy of consideration?

“High-street banks have proven that they can’t be trusted to give appropriate investment advice…. the odds of customers being sold an unsuitable product or investment bond are unacceptably high Quote from Which? money 7/3/2011
https://conversation.which.co.uk/money/is-it-time-to-cuff-the-banks/
Which? are providing “core funding” to Pfeg, alongside the Royal Bank of Scotland group and the British Bankers Association (representing all high street banks). Barclays are funding Pfeg funding forum events. Contradiction? Are they “independant” enough to educate teachers and children?

In September 2009, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) said, “financial education is a cornerstone of PSHE” at the same time as Pfeg were over halfway through their £15 million FSA (read: taxpayer) funded, FSA’s national strategy capability program for schools – then listed a PSHE framework in which “credit” didn’t get a single mention!
At this time the government-funded Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) suggested bringing in ‘volunteers’ from HSBC for financial education lessons in primary schools.
The Labour proposal discussion on credit management and personal finance being added to the national curriculum continued…
“…is employing the banks to teach kids about money a bit like getting Playboy to teach them about sex?”

I particularly noted the end piece, “Increasing and improving the provision of financial education would be a vote-winner as well as a powerful weapon against poverty: according to a YouGov poll for Insight Investment, 87 per cent of people felt financial literacy should be introduced as a compulsory topic to the school curriculum”
Polls and surveys, published years before the self proclaimed saving money expert’s epetition, showed a clear majority of the public in favour of some form of financial education, this was hardly a “campaign led by….” I’d wager good money that with the increased troubles for families with their finances, the popularity of this view would have increased.

“Make financial education compulsory; make it independent of the banks, and of anyone else who has an interest in getting young people into debt; and make it relevant to young people’s lives. Teach them about their rights when they sign a credit agreement. Teach them that no matter how many times the bank calls them, they need to pay their rent before they pay their credit card bill. Teach them about bailiffs.”
http://labourlist.org/2009/09/proposal-9-the-national-curriculum-should-include-credit-management-and-personal-finance-education-2/

I’d go further and question would unenforceable bank charges be included in education?
Would a BBA funded body as the Pfeg is, advise teaching to take out small claims court action to recover their money or gain recompense for mis-selling PPI and other products?

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) was concerned with saving money in 2005 – the report led directly to the light touch, non inspection regulation that caused the near collapse of RBS – yet in 2006 it gave Pfeg £15 Million over 5 years (2006-2011) to implement the schools strand of it’s “National strategy for financial capability” across secondary schools.(Pfeg’s “learning money matters” intiative)
This was taxpayer funded during a time when the FSA were ignoring the RBS expansion which collapsed in chaos and had to be bailed out with £45 Billion of taxpayer’s money – as well as the run on Northern rock, which required emergency funding from the Bank of England, the FSA and the Treasury.
The DCSF were also funding Pfeg to the tune of £10 million from 2008 to 2011, for the “My money” educational programme (a key part of the financial capability action plan, launched by the Treasury and the FSA) that Pfeg and their partners implemented.

Then we have the Pfeg “What money means” project, supported by HSBC, designed to “change the way personal finance is taught in primary schools.”
This involved HSBC staff, “…supporting their local primary schools by adding value IN the classroom”
http://www.pfeg.org/document.rm?id=428
Haven’t HSBC top brass today apologised for money laundering?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18970710

Banks and a consumer group (Which?) are funding Pfeg in their aims of compulsary financial education from primary to leaving school.
http://www.pfeg.org/projects-funding/how-pfeg-funded
Banks, government and the regulator (The FSA) have all funded Pfeg during the time when the UK has seen the biggest economic crash since the 1930’s depression.

Pfeg and Which? want me to support compulsary financial education for my child, which would involve financial industry staff training teachers and very possibly having bank staff going into classrooms, to teach my child about financial management?
Madness….

BBC post this morning, that RBS, HSBC and JP Morgan are “still under investigation in the US, UK and Asia in connection with the rate-fixing scandal”

Barclays have admitted attempting to fix Libor rates and been fined already.
All these businesses give funding in some way to Pfeg to discuss educating or educate in our schools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18982406

Thankyou ‘frugal ways’

I’m very disappointed in “Which”.
As for the rest – it comes as no surprise.

“It is well enough that people of the nation
do not understand our banking and monetary system,
for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”

(Henry Ford)

I’m not certain about the delivery, but I understand the industry funded the founding of Pfeg including a levy to financial advisers (FSA fees) i.e. me.
I believe its a start to solving a genuine need in this countries educational demands/deficit.
I’m not saying as an industry professional I fully support the programme, but its far too early to tell whether it will improve children’s understanding long term.
In this modern world, they need to understand APR, compound interest, tax (basic), and some understanding of risk.
If it means kids don’t take out risky products that they don’t understand, insurance policies they don’t need, or ridiculous headline rates of interest but only when you pay in x for y months and the rate only applies to the first y pounds and its z thereafter or you get 0.1% I will be happy.
The misselling costs time and anguish, loses faith by consumers, and the rest of us pay the compensation (FSCS) as its funded by the advisers that remain.

If you have children in a secondary school and you aren’t happy with what’s happening, then please direct all your resources and efforts to working with your school.
Get on a parents committee, work with a quality independent financial adviser (soon to be renamed), and put together a programme you care about or ask for directed attention to certain areas.
The more involved we all are the better, as its the countries parents that will determine what government and schools do. Apparently, there is a rumour that schools must treat us as ‘customers’ so why not exploit this for good for a change.

Good luck!

The FSA’s report into banks selling packaged accounts – accounts with insurance for example – 1 in 5 of us have now – shows that banks haven’t been checking that the account customer is able to claim on the insurance they are paying for.
The FSA haven’t even checked the banks on this until this report and now they say they will act, but not until March 2013 – when they won’t exist?

The Pfeg have received millions in funding on past projects from the inept FSA, who I would say, have been implicit in the financial sector’s blatent disregard for the public, regulation and laws, at a time when custom was being diverted to the banks on the orders of the government.
http://www.fsa.gov.uk/library/communication/pr/2012/079.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19011971

In other news, Barclays, another contributor to Pfeg, is being investigated again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19009169

Are financial institutions fit to be pulling the strings of financial training for teachers and in turn, our children?

HSBC is setting aside $2 BILLION after it’s very healthy 11% increase in profits, to cover possible money laundering fines in USA ($700 Million) and mis-selling PPI in the UK ($1.3 BILLION)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19044245

From my earlier post:
The Pfeg “What money means” project, supported by HSBC, designed to “change the way personal finance is taught in primary schools.”
This involved HSBC staff, “…supporting their local primary schools by adding value IN the classroom” [broken URL removed by moderator]

Are HSBC a fit and proper company to be involved in financial education of our children?

Which? moderator has edited my post to “remove a broken URL”

The url that linked to Pfeg’s “What money means” project, supported by HSBC, now links to an empty page?
Why has this information been removed by Pfeg?
In fact most of the “project links” are no longer working.
Instead HSBC’s involvement with Pfeg can be found here;
http://www.pfeg.org/projects-funding/projects/what-money-means-initial-teacher-training

It is odd though, that the page only reports “from January 2012” and the previous years of the campaign – to use HSBC staff in primary school classrooms – has disappeared!
This from HSBC website,
“With HSBC’s business being directly related to the ability of consumers to generate and create wealth, it is both their business interest, as well as an important societal interest for them to seek to enhance educational opportunities within the communities in which they operate. It is for this reason that HSBC has, for many years, aimed to direct 50% of its voluntary community support on education.
Created in 2007 What Money Means is a partnership between HSBC and the charity Pfeg (Personal Finance Education Group). Following a HSBC commissioned report into the state of financial education in the UK it was highlighted that there was very little focus on this within primary schools. As a result the programme was developed to increase the curriculum provision for financial education in primary schools; raise the confidence and competence of those teaching it; and facilitate the involvement of external volunteers in the classroom to support teachers.
The programme seeks to embed personal finance education into existing curriculum work by encouraging creativity and enhancing existing work so as not to provide additional burden to teachers. It enables schools to use What Money Means resources within their own lessons as well as supporting 1100 HSBC employees to go into schools to support through volunteering.
HSBC through their partnership with Pfeg also work closely with Teacher Training organisations to embed financial education into the initial training of teachers, some 724 trainee teachers have had an experience of the What Money Means programme”
(source: http://www.bitc.org.uk/resources/case_studies/afe_3211.html)

That proud of HSBC going into classrooms since 2007 are Pfeg, that they remove information about it from their website?
How strange….

HSBC and Pfeg have strong links.
This from a recent online article;
“On Thursday, high in HSBC’s Canary Wharf offices, all three previous Chairmen – Daniel Godfrey, Ron Sandler and Otto Thoresen – paid tribute to Wendy van den Hende, the Personal Finance Education Group’s (Pfeg) first Chief Executive”

Far too cosy with banks to be involved in teaching our children.

the whole economy is based on loser’s.

so no government is going to educate them.