A lot of people commented on my post on financial education for young people yesterday. I appreciated that.
It became clear that a number of resources are available, of which the best produced is probably that by Marin Lewis and various associates. They have produced four versions of an educational book on this issue, one for each nation-state in the UK.
The contents page of the UK book is:
The tax pages say:
The book has some merits and also problems.
It is pitched at 14 to 16-year-olds. I am not sure why. I really doubt that they are thinking about mortgages.
The above section on tax is also far too simplistic for that age range, I think, let alone an older one. I am not asking for in-depth analysis, but this section should discuss a bigger range of taxes, including the one that all young people pay, which is VAT.
However, better this resource than none. But the issue that concerns me is delivery and the need to encourage young people to access this (which they won't via a book).
I hope the reasons for that concern become more apparent this week, but thanks for all the contributions made: they assisted my thinking.
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If I may, I don’t like what you show at all.
I view it is an introduction to orthodoxy and nothing more. But then again, you are a lot more generous than me.
🙂
The book is available as a free pdf at http://www.young-enterprise.org.uk/YMM
Martin Lewis is credited with providing the funding, but he isn’t listed as a contributing author: the contributing authors are John Chapman
Stewart Jones, Emma Waller,Russell Winnard, Young Money,Liz Booth and Young Money.
For a book published by a charity (no doubt getting some government grant, and some private funding e.g. Martin Lewis as mentioned) with input from the government via the Department of Education, it’s effectively a book written by a committee, and it’s also quite good in my view.
England, Scotland, Wales and NI are not nation states by the way.
We will have to disagree
I think the book misses the target by focussing the wrong age range
And I agree NI is nit a national state
The others are in Union with England
I would imagine it’s aimed at schools for civics education classes – hence the prescriptive tone. You say that you don’t think this age group are really interested in mortgages etc but if they have no idea how it works when they need one, they will not know that they needed to be saving from age 14 to afford the deposit. After all many people leave school at 16 and go straight into paid work.
I wish I’d had a book to teach me the basics – everything I know about mortgages is capable of being written on the back of an envelope.
I am not saying it is wrong
I think it could be done better
I like Hyman Minsky’s encouragement to his students to look at the use of money from a balance sheet perspective in which “positions” are taken creating assets, liabilities and net worth. (Page 88, Chapter 4, “Why Minsky Matters”, L. Randall Wray) This notion of “positions” makes Minsky the most important economist after Keynes. As Minsky says on this page:-
“Economists often begin with the assumption that ‘money is dropped from helicopters’ — it falls into your hands as an asset.”
Isn’t this the unthinking fallacy of most voters because of a failed education system?
The fallacy is an outcome of an economics discipline that has completely failed to deliver a body of usable, credible, practical knowledge. Minsky wrote that because “many” economists don’t believe money is fundamental to economics. The ones who see money as fundamental to economics are typically disciples of Minsky.
Correct
It is bizarre that the rest virtually ignore it, especially at macro
Time for you to go on Kuenssberg’s show? Martin Lewis is on there this morning.
Being quite effective
LauraK follows me on Twitter
The introduction by Martin Lewis to the ‘’Your Money Matters’ textbook states: ‘ It’s here to start you out on your journey towards financial literacy. While it won’t come close to teaching you all the answers you’ll need for life, it does cover many of the main ones. Yet even if all you picked up was to take money seriously, to read up and ask questions before making big decisions, and gain the skills to do the numbers, it would leave me skipping like a little lamb (not a pleasant image I accept).’
I think that it is appropriately modest and realistic in its ambitions.
We should also note that this is not a textbook project but a learning project that can only be understood in full by also reviewing the Teacher’ Guide (and I have only skimmed it).
The ‘’Your Money Matters’ textbook states that it aims to ‘build the skills, knowledge and attitudes of young people to make informed choices about managing their money, now and in the future.’ i.e. it addresses skills and attitudes as well as knowledge. It is only when one looks at lesson plans that one can start to evaluate whether this might be achieved.
A starting point for learning about finance is relevance to the student. It is clear that the Teachers’ Guide, via starter activities and case studies, addresses relevance, in so far as it can, at this stage in the student’s life. Case studies seem to be age/context appropriate (based, again, on my limited skimming of the Guide). Students will already vary in their attitudes to money/life and the case studies appear to give them the opportunity to identify the way in which they vary. I note that the issue of delayed gratification is addressed.
Whenever we consider financial education we should also focus on meta-skills e.g. developing the student’s ability to make use of content, in context, at a certain life stage. This involves a meta-skill of recognising when personal, environmental and informational context/circumstances change. Lewis, in his aims above, seems to recognise this – but it could be developed further.
To note one further issue that is relevant to financial education – scepticism. We want young people to be critical evaluators/users of information. This involves some form scepticism. However, during many years of teaching auditing, I found that ‘scepticism’ and ‘trust’ could be problematic for students. The more I delved into this with students, the more apparent it became that many were reluctant to ‘dis-trust’ others. ‘To trust’ was seen as a good quality amongst friends and family. It also appeared that its continuance was considered desirable in other (professional) contexts. This was of concern, given that we value professional scepticism in auditing. But, given the emotional resonance attached to ‘trust’, it provided a useful and diverting springboard for discussion within workshops.
All noted, thank you