Curriculum emphasises financial education

The new curriculum will be taught from September 2014 and will see financial education becoming a statutory part of the curriculum for the first time.

In the Commons, Duncan Hames said that “as well as better equipping young people for the decisions that they will make in adult life, the relevance of these questions may also improve their interest in and appetite for learning maths”.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said: “The two things reinforce each other: an appreciation of financial education and mathematics and mental arithmetic all go together.”

Education charity Personal Finance Education Group( pfeg) has campaigned for greater financial education in schools. It welcomed the latest version of the new national curriculum which sees more emphasis being placed on teaching students about money.

Tracey Bleakley, pfegchief executive, said:

“We are absolutely delighted to see greater prominence given to teaching children and young people about money in the new curriculum.

“pfeg have campaigned for compulsory financial education for 13 years and has wide ranging support from teachers, parents, young people, employers and politicians.

“We are delighted that the Department for Education have worked with us on this; in particular we welcome the inclusion of pfeg’s recommendation to incorporate ‘risk management’ in Citizenship at key stage 3 and ‘income and expenditure, credit and debt, insurance, savings, pensions’ at key stage 4.

“Today’s news sees us moving towards achieving our ultimate goal of ensuring all young people leave school with the skills, knowledge and confidence to thrive and survive in society.”