Unlock Editor’s Digest for free
FT editor Roula Khalaf has chosen her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Young people are eager to learn more about money, but financial education remains neglected in schools around the world, hurting personal and financial potential alike. Today we are launching the Financial Times Seasonal Appeal to support two charities with complementary ambitions to ‘feed the future’. Both figuratively through FLIC, the financial education charity the FT founded in 2021, and through Magic Breakfast, an appeal partner that literally provides free meals. across schools in the UK.
Magic Breakfast already feeds more than 200,000 young people across England and Scotland each morning. Meanwhile, FLIC’s financial curriculum is taught in nearly 500 secondary schools. The charity reaches thousands of young people in formal education and over two million others through educational social media videos. Early international initiatives range from a collaboration with an Italian TV cartoon to a planned large-scale rollout of financial education programs in India with local charity Pratham.
This is only possible with the generous support of FT readers. FLIC’s appeal partnership with Magic Breakfast means that readers, and corporate supporters who donate or match reader donations, support the charity’s important next steps. As a guide, if we raised £1 million we would provide 10,000 students with a year’s worth of healthy breakfasts and financial skills training.
The potential of two simple school interventions is immense: a proper breakfast and a lesson about money. Research shows that hunger hinders educational attainment. Last week, the Education Policy Research Institute, a British think tank, reported that people under the age of five who experience food poverty tend to have weaker math skills and cognitive development. The UK Labor Government has promised to provide free breakfast to all primary school students, but there is a huge need to extend the offer to secondary school level.
The nature of school learning also leaves significant gaps in key areas. In theory, financial literacy is integrated into the curriculum in the UK. However, most of the material is within the so-called PSHE area, which includes a wide range of topics such as health, sex and relationships. Some lay teachers are nervous about tackling financial topics, and financial literacy is often neglected due to tight timetables and a lack of quality oversight by regulators.
One of FLIC’s early priorities was to develop a complete secondary education program that directly addressed each element of the curriculum, in a way that supported teachers and encouraged student participation. Ta.
feed the future
We support the financial literacy and inclusion campaign’s joint seasonal appeal with Magic Breakfast
FLIC and FT also argued that policymakers should treat basic financial knowledge as an important life skill and strengthen it through a mathematics curriculum that places greater emphasis on “mathematics for life.” Without these skills, consumers risk making poor decisions about whether to borrow or save, which can be costly. In contrast, young people with high financial literacy are much more likely to make productive investments for the benefit of society and to become successful entrepreneurs.
What’s great is that the UK government has launched a curriculum overhaul to modernize its approach to learning. Other countries are also taking financial literacy more seriously, and while the Nordic countries are good at both feeding students and teaching them finance, more can be done everywhere.
Global data is scarce. But a World Bank study a decade ago found that only a third of adults had even a basic understanding of interest rates and investment risks. Another priority for FLIC is improving data monitoring.
The market for personal financial products is becoming increasingly complex, they can be mis-sold, and the easy access to these products via smartphones makes all these tasks more urgent than ever. . Supporting the FT’s Seasonal Appal ensures that the FT tackles it head-on.
