Martin Lewis points pressing name for private finance classes in colleges

Martin Lewis has accused the Government of a monetary training “farce” as he urged it to create “apps and games” for youngsters to be taught important cash expertise in colleges.

The MoneySavingExpert.com founder hit out at ministers for failing to fund assets for private finance classes as he revealed he was pressured to cough up his personal cash to fund the primary ever textbook on the topic. He urged ministers to be ingenious in educating children about cash points by speaking about cell phones or journey insurance coverage.

Speaking to MPs on the Commons Education Committee, Mr Lewis stated there are “zero resources” going into educating monetary literacy and stated it was essential for youths to grasp the topic as the price of residing bites. He stated too usually it’s “assumed” that youngsters find out about pay checks, pupil finance, tax code numbers, or that top rates of interest are a nasty factor not an excellent factor. In 2021, Mr Lewis funded 350,000 copies and free on-line downloads of monetary textbook Your Money Matters for colleges.

The e book teaches the best way to save, price range, or borrow cash in addition to about pupil finance, pensions, investments, advantages, playing, debt, insurance coverage, safety and fraud. But Mr Lewis has demanded ministers contemplate methods to digitise monetary training, a suggestion he stated was beforehand slapped down.

“We want ongoing teacher training we want to proper textbooks for schools we want apps and games and things people can play that give financial education,” he stated. “We need a rounded funded way to do this and we’re talking low numbers millions of pounds. We’re not talking hundreds of millions.” The annoyed monetary journalist added: “But maybe the state could pay this time and not me.”

Mr Lewis pleaded with the Department for Education to offer coaching for lecturers. “The one counter argument is that it’s a parent’s responsibility. Well, that’s great for my daughter because it’ll go pretty well to be fair. But what you do is perpetuate a cycle of the ‘financial knows’ and the ‘financial know nots,'” he stated.

“Ultimately to do this properly we need a universalised financial education that is supporting every school that is on the curriculum, that is taught by the professionals in teaching – who are the teachers – and who are properly resourced and are properly educated themselves and get ongoing teacher training to keep up with it. And I do not believe the resources are being put in place to do that.”

Mr Lewis was crucial of the Government for counting on him to fund a textbook on the topic for youngsters. He stated: “I’m not the Government. I’m a private individual. I actually have a substantial political objection that a private individual should be asked to pay for a textbook to go into schools… I don’t understand why I was asked to pay for it. On a practical basis I was told quite succinctly it was not going to happen unless I funded it so I funded it over my own objections.”

He stated the DfE additionally advised him it was not allowed to assist the e book if he went through a writer so was additionally pressured to “fund the publishing and the printing” too. “If we didn’t self-publish we couldn’t get the Department for Education to do the letter it did to schools supporting the textbook,” he stated. “Forgive me but what a bloody farce. Is that not just ridiculous?”

Mr Lewis stated he ensured the contract for the textbook, which was handed to Young Money, made clear he didn’t need “editorial control” of the content material and criticised the Government for leaving the choice to him within the first place. “I could’ve put my stance into schools. I could’ve used it as a piece of propaganda. I could’ve done all of those things. That doesn’t seem right to me,” he stated.

Asked about monetary training in colleges, Schools Minister Damian Hinds stated: “There’s more than there used to be and we’d like there to be more. There’s this ambition for two million more children and young people to be getting a meaningful financial education by the end of the decade. I support that.

“I do think it’s really important that children leave school with a firm grasp of the knowledge and the life skills that will help them to thrive and protect themselves in adult life, and financial literacy, financial capability – it goes by many names – is clearly a really important part of that.”