Thursday, 27 June 2013 10:05
Financial education to help the UK economy long-term
Andy Zanelli, head of retirement planning at AXA Wealth, believes financial education is vital for the UK's long-term financial health.
Financial education is to be introduced in maths and citizenship lessons for pupils at secondary school. This decision followed a campaign by the Personal Financial Education Group (pfeg) to have financial education on the curriculum.
Mr Zanelli said: "This issue of financial education is a key stepping stone to the long-term financial welfare of the UK, and changing the mindset of Generation X and those that follow after them is fundamental to our long-term finances."
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He said informing children of finance required different tactics to working with adults as many would have no prior knowledge of finance.
"While educating older generations can be done on a more tactical basis, engaging younger generations in financial education, as part of the National Curriculum, is more strategic.
"This is about changing the attitude of generations that have no preconceptions or 'emotional baggage' and should build on initiatives such as those by pfeg and form part of the school day.
"The subject has the potential to fundamentally change individuals' attitudes to managing their money, implications of debt and could contribute to breaking down our culture of inertia towards savings and as a result should form a core part of the primary and secondary school curriculum."
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Financial education is to be introduced in maths and citizenship lessons for pupils at secondary school. This decision followed a campaign by the Personal Financial Education Group (pfeg) to have financial education on the curriculum.
Mr Zanelli said: "This issue of financial education is a key stepping stone to the long-term financial welfare of the UK, and changing the mindset of Generation X and those that follow after them is fundamental to our long-term finances."
{desktop}{/desktop}{mobile}{/mobile}
He said informing children of finance required different tactics to working with adults as many would have no prior knowledge of finance.
"While educating older generations can be done on a more tactical basis, engaging younger generations in financial education, as part of the National Curriculum, is more strategic.
"This is about changing the attitude of generations that have no preconceptions or 'emotional baggage' and should build on initiatives such as those by pfeg and form part of the school day.
"The subject has the potential to fundamentally change individuals' attitudes to managing their money, implications of debt and could contribute to breaking down our culture of inertia towards savings and as a result should form a core part of the primary and secondary school curriculum."
• Want to receive a free weekly summary of the best news stories from our website? Just go to home page and submit your name and email address. If you are already logged in you will need to log out to see the e-newsletter sign up. You can then log in again.
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