Two vital interventions to boost children’s life chances

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Young people are hungry to learn more about money, yet financial education is still sorely neglected in schools across the world — hurting the potential of individuals and economies alike. Today we launch the Financial Times Seasonal Appeal in support of two charities with complementary ambitions to “feed the future”: metaphorically through FLIC, the financial education charity the FT established in 2021, and literally through our appeal partner Magic Breakfast, which provides free meals across UK schools.

Magic Breakfast already feeds more than 200,000 young people in England and Scotland each morning. FLIC’s financial curriculum, meanwhile, is being taught in nearly 500 secondary schools. The charity has reached thousands of young people in formal education and more than 2mn others via educational social media videos. A nascent international push ranges from collaborating with an Italian TV cartoon to a planned mass rollout of a financial education programme in India, with local charity Pratham.

Only with FT readers’ generous support has this been possible. FLIC’s appeal partnership with Magic Breakfast means that readers, and any corporate supporters that might choose to give or to match reader donations, will be supporting the charities’ vital next steps. As an indication, £1mn raised would mean a year’s worth of healthy breakfasts, and financial skills training for 10,000 students.

The potential power of two simple school interventions — a decent breakfast and a lesson about money — is enormous. Research has shown hunger hampers educational attainment. Last week, the UK’s Education Policy Institute, a think-tank, reported that under-fives who experience food poverty are more likely to have weak maths skills and cognitive development. The UK Labour government has promised to provide free breakfasts to all primary school pupils, but there is a huge need to expand provision to secondary level.

The nature of school learning also leaves huge gaps in vital areas. In theory, financial literacy is on the curriculum in England. But most of the material sits within the so-called PSHE area, which embraces a wide range of topics like health, sex and relationships. The nervousness of some non-specialist teachers to tackle financial topics, a squeezed timetable and the absence of quality monitoring by regulators mean financial literacy is often neglected.

One of FLIC’s early priorities has been to develop a full secondary school learning programme that maps directly to each element of the curriculum, but in a way that supports teachers and engages students.

Feed the future

Support the Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign’s joint seasonal appeal with Magic Breakfast

FLIC, and the FT, have also argued that policymakers should ensure foundational financial knowledge is treated as a key life skill, reinforced though a mathematics curriculum that gives greater weight to “maths for life”. Without such skills, consumers risk making bad decisions on borrowing or saving, which could cost them dearly. Financially literate young people are, by contrast, far more likely to invest productively or succeed as entrepreneurs, to the benefit of society.

Commendably, the UK government has launched a curriculum review to modernise the approach to learning. Other countries are taking financial literacy more seriously, too — Nordic countries excel at both feeding students and teaching them finance — but everywhere could do more.

Global data is scant. But a World Bank study a decade ago suggested barely a third of adults had even a basic understanding of interest rates and investment risk. Another FLIC priority is to improve data monitoring.

An increasingly complicated market for retail financial products, which may be mis-sold, combined with far easier access to those products via smartphones, makes all these tasks ever more urgent. Supporting the FT’s Seasonal Appeal will ensure they are tackled head on.