Financial literacy – the unplanned child
Where does financial literacy fit?
Financial literacy is like an unplanned child in the New Zealand curriculum – most people are delighted it’s there but there’s uncertainty about who should look after it.
The deputy prime minister, Nicola Wills, is on record saying “If elected, (we) will deliver financial literacy in schools. It's a shame this wasn't done earlier as part of the curriculum changes, but it is certainly something we'd like to see happen”.
The fact is, financial literacy is already required to be taught in the curriculum. The problem is where it sits. The ongoing refresh of the curriculum the coalition government has initiated provides an opportunity to answer that question.
At MoneyTime, we’ve identified 3 places it could go:
1. Stand-alone subject
With money management being a critical life-skill for every single person, there is an argument it should be its own subject. Not everybody is going to benefit from trigonometry or poetry or history, but every single student is going to need to know how to manage their money as adults, and how well they do that will have a significant impact on their lives. Education is meant to prepare our children for life, is not financial capability as important in life as literacy and numeracy?
2. Cross-curricular
This is where financial literacy currently fits, across multiple learning areas. I.e Maths, Social Studies and Commerce/ Enterprise. The problems with this are it’s a piecemeal approach and doesn’t adequately address personal finance. In simple terms, in Maths financial transactions are used as examples for arithmetic. Social Science’s focus is on economics, which is not personal finance, and Enterprise teaches the language and concepts of business, which again is not personal finance.
3. Single subject
For financial literacy to be taken seriously, it at least needs to be contained in a single learning area. This could be Maths or Social Science or Enterprise. Enterprise is typically only taught in years 11-13 which is too late, also it’s an elective. Maths is a core learning area (numeracy) and is essentially sacrosanct, despite my comment re trigonometry above. Which leaves Social Sciences. These already include economics and so are the logical fit, although we suggest the emphasis needs to be changed to material that all students will use and benefit from knowing i.e personal finance.
Another learning area financial literacy could sit in is Health and Physical Education. The emphasis there is on wellbeing and it’s goes without saying that financial security and resilience are cornerstones for mental and physical wellbeing. We also note that the other topics covered there e.g exercise, nutrition, relationships, sex education are life skills, which is exactly what financial literacy is. It could be included in there and Health and Physical Education could be renamed ‘Lifeskills’.
Learning outcomes
Wherever it is positioned, it is essential appropriate learning outcomes are required. We think the outcomes need to be more prescriptive than the current curriculum and suggest the Financial Capability Progressions (2014) are used. These are personal finance based but were drafted 8 years after the 2008 curriculum was completed so that version doesn’t reference them. They aren’t referenced in any of the above learning areas in the current curriculum either so the present refresh is an opportunity to include them.
Directory
Finally, how about a directory or marketplace that teachers can go to in order to find relevant resources? It can be filterable by criteria such as digital vs physical, self-directed vs teacher led, curriculum aligned, provides assessment etc so teachers can easily identify resources that meet their teaching requirements.
What do you think?
There are many parties interested in how financial literacy is treated going forward, including the coalition government, the Retirement Commission, NGO’s promoting financial literacy, program sponsors, resource providers, parents and of course teachers. We’re very interested to hear what you think. It’s important the decision makers know what teachers want so if this article has stirred some thoughts, please drop me a line at neil@moneytime.co.nz. All correspondence will be treated as confidential but may be referred to generally as we continue discussions with the relevant parties.