Question to the Department for Education:

What recent assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of educating children on financial responsibility.

Economic and financial education are important parts of a broad and balanced curriculum and provide the essential knowledge to ensure that young people are prepared to manage their money well, make sound financial decisions and know where to seek further information when needed.

Pupils currently receive financial education through the maths and citizenship curricula, both subjects are in the National Curriculum.

Finance education as part of the citizenship curriculum can be taught at all key stages. The curriculum seeks to develop young people’s financial awareness and skills by helping them to look after their money and realise that future wants and needs may be met through saving. This is built on at secondary school to cover income and expenditure, credit and debt, insurance, savings and pensions, financial products and services, and how public money is raised and spent.

The Department has introduced a rigorous mathematics curriculum, which provides pupils with the knowledge and skills to make important financial decisions. In the primary mathematics curriculum, there is a strong emphasis on arithmetical knowledge; this knowledge is vital, as a strong understanding of numeracy will underpin pupils’ ability to manage budgets and money. There is also specific content about financial education, including calculations with money.

Schools are also free to include the teaching of financial education in their non-statutory personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) provision if they wish, drawing on the PSHE Association’s non-statutory programme of study.

We trust schools to use their professional judgement and understanding of their pupils to develop the right teaching approach for their particular school, drawing on the expertise of subject associations and organisations.

The Department continues to work closely with the Money and Pensions Service and other stakeholders such as Her Majesty’s Treasury, to consider what can be learned from a range of external initiatives and whether there is scope to provide further support for the teaching of financial education in schools.