The ifs School of Finance, a leading financial education charity, has called on policymakers to introduce an element of financial education to all teacher-training programmes.
Anne Kiem, Director of External Affairs at the ifs School of Finance, said:
“We believe it is essential that teachers are adequately equipped with the skills and confidence to teach personal finance. This would best be achieved by introducing an element of Personal Finance to all teacher-training programmes. In addition to giving teachers the skills and confidence to teach the subject effectively, doing so would also enable teachers to better manage their own finances, whether they go on to teach the subject or not.”
The calls follow recent research from the Association of Investment Companies (AIC) which suggested only 4% of teachers taught financial education but that 25% would do so if it were made a statutory part of the curriculum and a further 57% would take it on as an additional subject if they were provided with appropriate training.
Anne Kiem added, “The fact that the AIC research suggests almost 75% of teachers would be happy to teach personal finance if it were a statutory course and proper teacher training was provided, again highlights the need for both.”
The AIC research also showed that over 90% of parents and teachers think personal finance should be taught in schools.
The ifs School of Finance has long campaigned for Government to make a standalone qualification in personal finance a statutory part of the school curriculum, putting personal finance on an equal footing with other subjects such as Geography and Modern Foreign languages ie compulsory for schools to offer it but not compulsory for all students to take it.
The ifs School of Finance currently provides the only GCSE equivalent qualifications in Personal Finance, the Foundation and Intermediate Certificates in Personal Finance, as well as AS and A level equivalent qualifications in financial studies. Over 10,000 students in England & Wales are already taking these recently launched qualifications.
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