New Financial Courses in High School at Catch a Gideon

October 27th, 2006 by digerati

BBC ran this story several months ago about adding finance courses to high school curricula.

The Institute of Financial Services has launched two new qualifications for them - a foundation certificate and an intermediate certificate. The Institute will supply the curriculum, teaching materials, and exams for schools to offer their pupils alongside GCSE topics. The courses will cover issues such as loans, currencies and car insurance. The exam asks simple questions about deciphering pay slips, the cheapest way to borrow money, the eBay auction web site, bank accounts and ATMs.

This is a great idea! Kids should learn the basics of personal finance as early as possible. Parents rarely teach their children what they need to know. How many parents have shown their kids a pay slip and showing them the deductions. (How many of the parents really understand this themselves?)

Whether parents are embarrassed by their incomes to show their children, that they don’t know, or that it never occurs to them doesn’t matter. The point is the schools are realizing that school need to pick up the slack and educate the population on basic finance.

When I was in high school (5 years ago) we didn’t have any required finance courses. We had excellent econ classes (and Mr. Haessler was possibly the coolest econ teacher ever!) but nothing directly related to personal finance. Granted we did cover many aspects of investing and the stock market, but it was not technically part of the curriculum. My brother hasn’t had anything like it either, but he’s only a freshman this year.

Leave comments telling me about the finance experience you had in high school. Is offering these courses in high school a good idea? Should they be mandatory?