Before I started my career as a financial planner, I was briefly a secondary school maths teacher. I left because I didn’t feel passionate about what I was teaching, as I couldn’t get my head around the lack of basic financial education in the curriculum.
Back in 2015, I don’t remember financial education entering the discussion in the school staff room.
It was all about delivering grades rather than life skills, which I fundamentally didn’t agree with. The final straw on leaving the profession was when I was teaching a year nine class trigonometry, many of whom struggled with basic arithmetic.
A girl put her hand up and said, “Sir, when am I going to use this in real life?” and the first thing that popped into my head was, “Most people don’t”. I couldn’t, and didn’t, tell her this, but I left the school at the end of the term.
Although financial education is now included in the secondary school curriculum, the findings from the APPG’s 2022 survey showed two-fifths of secondary school teachers surveyed didn’t actually know that it was. Almost a decade after I was in their shoes, there’s still so much work that needs to be done.
As financial planners, part of our ongoing role is to guide our clients through key points of transition. In my opinion this also extends to the children of our clients, as many of our clients' transitions are linked with the transitions of their children.
The most common transitions I find myself having conversations about with clients are when their children go to university and when they start their first job. A key theme that concerns clients throughout these conversations is their child’s lack of financial education, often they find it a difficult subject to tackle themselves.
A 2023 study from Compare the Market and financial education charity MyBnk showed only 41 per cent of young adults were considered financially literate and almost two-thirds did not recall receiving any financial education, which validates clients' concerns.
Great work is being done within the profession to try to change this systemic issue. The CISI, as a charity and financial services sector professional body, supports the promotion of greater financial literacy within the UK education curriculum.
In this respect it submitted written evidence to the Education Committee financial education inquiry in January 2024. The CISI Future Foundation was set up to make a difference through partnering with inspirational organisations, to improve financial literacy skills around the world, making grants totalling over £465,000 to seven deserving organisations across the UK working in this crucial area of financial literacy.
For a lot of children already in the education system it’s already too little, too late. However, what this does present is an opportunity to deliver value to our clients as their family’s financial planner.
At Fiscal Engineers, we’ve found running sessions with children of clients ahead of these key transitions has been hugely impactful and well received. In a world full of noise for young people, discussing some relatively straightforward concepts can have a significant and lasting impact.
