Financial Education should start at School

Yesterday I have written a post about "why people do not invest their money" and went over some of the reasons for the same. Some of the comments which I got show that there should be a financial education which should start as early as from school.

We did not have Personal Finance Curriculum in our syllabus, but being grown up as a middle class where we did not have much money left at the end of the month, I know the importance of money and how to have an abundance of it at the form of investment. I have been taught the importance of money at home and not at school, but I think it should be taught at school so that the future generation should be well aware of the money to create a better world.

I think the purpose of education is to prepare the child for the future and if the syllabus does not have a basic course on personal finance then how can we expect the child to align with the requirements of the real world where money touches everything. The students are being prepared to become professionals to earn well in the future but they are not taught to create wealth using the money they earn and because of that most of the people in high paying jobs end up saving nothing. Most of my friends learn about money after getting into scams (credit card, loan) or when they are in that circumstances like high debt. But if they should have known earlier their lifestyle would be so different.

Children's who learn to manage money is better to handle their finances as adults as opposed to someone who never learns about money. Even a small amount of time every week at school can save thousands of rupees for people later on. I was reading somewhere that as of 2020 only 27% of Indians are financially literate. If financial education should be given at every school then this number can go beyond that. Financial literacy is actually a kind of knowledge that can help a child to avoid lifelong money struggles which we see for most people. I am not saying that it should be a full course but the basic concepts like Budgeting, Emergency Fund, Understanding the debt and how to manage it, Retirement Plan, Insurance should be some of the topics which are I guess makes 50% of the total financial education.

I have read "Rich Dad and Poor Dad" and I guess the book also conveys the same thing that if a person is not too good in academics can do good in his life even if he is financially literate.

In India, Reserve Bank of India have started the initiative of financial education with some schools but still, it's a long way to go before it is added into the curriculum. They also have a dedicated section on Financial literacy which is actually to promote awareness of personal finance.

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