Financial literacy at school will save Kiwis learning the hard way
It is arguably one of the most important life skills, but for decades, it has been missing from our classrooms.
Financial literacy: two words that might sound a little dull on paper, but in the real world, they could be the difference between thriving and just surviving.
'I think I learnt my financial literacy the same way that most parents have, and that is through trial and error,' MoneyTime CEO Neil Edmond tells The Detail.
'This is not the ideal way to go, because trial and error tends to include error, and errors can be costly.
'A lot of us have learnt what we know by learning the hard way. We have lost money, needlessly, or we haven't made money when we could have.
'And I think we all recognise that we could be better off financially if we had made better decisions … and we would have made better decisions if we had known what the answers were and the answers come from being educated.'
Edmond welcomes the Government's decision to add financial education to the social sciences curriculum, with lessons starting in Year 1 at primary school, in 2027.
It is a pre-election policy commitment, with the Retirement Commission working with the education ministry on the new curriculum and resources to support it.
'I think it's fantastic,' says Edmond, who creates an online financial literacy programme for students aged 10 to 14 in New Zealand and overseas.
'What I'm particularly pleased to see is they are going to be starting it in Year 1, and I think we all appreciate how important it is to develop good habits and behaviour as early as possible, because it's more likely to become entrenched and continue.
'I think we are going to be leading the world if we are implementing it from Year 1. It's terrific. Years 1 to 10, that's 10 years of financial education; just imagine how much better people are going to be around their decision making with money, with that sort of education.'
He says, right now, most Kiwi kids don't know much – if anything – about the basics of money management but are facing a financial landscape more complicated than ever before.
Interest rates. Student loans. Buy now, pay later schemes. Credit card debt. High rents. Fluctuating mortgage rates. It can be a minefield. And most teenagers have been heading into it with barely a map, until now.
So, what would financial literacy in schools look like?
Think budgeting, saving, understanding taxes, KiwiSaver, and even a crash course in credit. Real-world, practical stuff. The kind of knowledge that helps a teenager open a bank account, manage their first pay cheque, or avoid getting stung by high-interest lending.
'I think it's great, and it will be really helpful and effective… and it could make quite a significant difference to lives,' RNZ's Money Correspondent Susan Edmunds tells The Detail.
She says making our kids financially literate will have economic benefits for the country.
'I actually found a paper from the Reserve Bank about this. It pointed out that better financial literacy could help the financial system because it would help it be sounder and more efficient if people were not making so many risky decisions, if they weren't taking on so much debt.
'So, there definitely could be ways that it could make the economy, as a whole, stronger, if we are all making better financial decisions and investing well.'
She says overseas, financial education is working well in classrooms.
'Apparently, Denmark has a programme for teenagers and that's been credited with the country's 71 percent financial literacy rate, which is high by international standards.
'But while researching this, I also noticed a lot of papers talked about how it's difficult to get right, how to strike the right balance … so, there will be a few things to work through, I think.'
Edmunds and Edmond both have concerns about how teachers will fit the new curriculum into already-full workloads, and encourage proper training and support.
But, like so many, they see the overall benefit in making money lessons that matter.
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