Impact of Financial Education

Financial education enables young people to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes towards money so that they can make informed financial decisions and thrive in today’s society. Without the skills built through financial education, young people are at risk of financial difficulties, exclusion and debt.

Impact of Training Teachers in Financial Education

By Young Money and University of Edinburgh Business School

  • The What Works for Financial Education project aimed to ascertain to what extent training teachers to plan and deliver financial education impacts on the financial capability of the young people they teach.
  • The project focused specifically on post-16 learners (KS5) and their teachers in schools in England, a group that has previously not been a focus in financial education teaching.
  • The study found that teacher training had a positive impact on both teachers and students, leading to improvements in teacher confidence delivering financial education, as well as improvements in students’ confidence and behaviour across a range of financial capability outcomes.

Young Adults’ Financial Capability

By Money Advice Service

  • Young adults were both more likely to have financial goals over the next five years (69%) and to have plans to achieve those goals (41%) (compared to all adults aged 18+)
  • 69% of young adults reported having financial goals over the next five years (compared to 53% of all adults aged 18+)
  • 41% had plans for their financial goals (compared to 36% of all adults 18+).
  • Young adults had the lowest levels of financial confidence compared to other age groups. Only 45% rated themselves as ‘very confident’ (compared to 58% of all adults aged 18+)

Habit Formation and Learning in Young Children

By Money Advice Service

  • Children under 8 years old have not developed an understanding of the difference between ‘luxuries’ and ‘necessities’
See also: The Financial Capability of Children and Young People (MAS, 2016)  

APPG on Financial Education for Young People

By All Party Parliamentary Group

  • Only 17% of secondary school teachers have personally received, or are aware that a colleague has received, training or advice on teaching financial education
  • 58% of secondary school teachers in England would like to receive more training in this area
  • Only 28% of secondary school teachers in England believe their school has put more emphasis on financial education since it became statutory. 42% feel there has been no change in emphasis at all

London Lead Teachers in Financial Education

By Young Money (formerly pfeg)

  • The project explored whether providing a financial education within mathematics can enhance a student’s attainment and engagement
  • Across the treatment of groups, there was a 21% increase between student’s assessments taken at the beginning of the intervention and those at the end compared to 3% increase in the control group
  • Following the project, 100% of teachers embedded financial mathematics into their school’s maths curriculum