Jennifer Lauren: State schools are making us poorer and here’s why

Jennifer Lauren is a writer and author of children’s finance book ‘What’s all that money stuff?’.

When was the last time you had to balance a quadratic equation? Now ask yourself, when was the last time you had to look at your bank account?

There’s a strange imbalance in the way we educate children. Around the age of 11 or 12, they’re asked to master increasingly complex academic concepts: balancing quadratic equations, analysing Shakespeare’s layered meanings, memorising the difference between ionic and covalent bonds. The expectation is that these subjects form the foundation of a good education, a rite of passage to intellectual maturity.

And yet, almost no time is spent teaching these same children the simple, practical skills they will absolutely need to use nearly every single day of their adult lives.

Take inflation, for example. Adults experience it constantly, sometimes painfully, yet many people don’t know how to calculate whether their annual pay raise is keeping up with inflation, or whether, in real terms, they’re actually earning less. Or consider credit cards: a young adult’s first credit card statement arrives, filled with jargon, and they realize they have no idea what “APR” even stands for, let alone how it affects them.

At 12, you might be able to find the value of x, but you probably wouldn’t be able to explain how compounding interest quietly drains, or builds, your wealth over time. That’s a problem.

And here’s the kicker: most of us lose the academic knowledge anyway. I, for one, can’t balance a quadratic equation today, nor could I confidently calculate the angle of a triangle if you asked me to. I haven’t had to. But I do have to manage my money, pay bills, budget, and make financial choices every single day. I suspect that’s true for most people too.

This isn’t an argument against teaching maths, literature, or science. They matter. To the right child, these subjects can spark a lifelong passion and maybe even uncover the next Hawking, the next Shakespeare. But here’s the thing: even those future geniuses will still need to understand how money works. Financial literacy isn’t niche. It’s universal.

What the data tells us:

• In the UK, nearly 24 million adults have poor financial literacy. That’s around 44 per cent of the adult population struggle to answer basic financial questions correctly. – Scottish Financial News
• One survey found 78 per cent of UK adults believe themselves to be financially literate, yet 71 per cent don’t even know how a savings account works. – Current Account Switch
• The gap isn’t just a matter of knowledge. It has huge emotional, physical, and financial costs:
  • 49 per cent of adults behind on energy bills report high anxiety. – Office for National Statistics
  • Over half of UK adults (54 per cent) felt more anxious or stressed due to the cost of living in early 2023. – FCA
  • Financial worries are a widespread cause of poor mental health; for example, 62 per cent of adults report concerns about money, and 79 per cent of those say it affects their mental wellbeing. IFA Magazine

Imagine if even a fraction of the energy we pour into repetitive academic classes was redirected toward teaching every kid the basics of money management; budgeting, saving, investing, credit, debt, and taxes. We’d graduate a generation better prepared for real life. The knock-on effects would be profound: less financial stress, fewer stress-related illnesses, less strain on healthcare systems, more confident and capable young adults able to make informed decisions.

Financial literacy shouldn’t be a privilege taught only to those whose parents have the time or knowledge to pass it down. It’s not optional. It’s a right. A good education isn’t complete without it.

Where Policy Comes In

Education reform has been a Conservative flagship for years. From Michael Gove’s 2014 curriculum changes to Jeremy Hunt’s recent push for compulsory maths to 18, the focus has been on academic rigour. Yet financial education remains sidelined.

In 2014, financial literacy was added to Citizenship Education, but it’s non-examined, under-resourced, and inconsistently taught. A 2023 APPG report found fewer than one in five teachers feel confident delivering it. Meanwhile, league tables reward schools for exam results, not for equipping students with the knowledge to read their first payslip.

A Conservative Opportunity

If the Conservative Party truly wants to strengthen household finances and reduce long-term welfare dependency, and boost the economy, it could make financial literacy a statutory, examinable subject, properly resourced and taught from an early age.

If we truly want to set the next generation up for success, if we truly want better for them, let’s stop pretending that knowing how to analyse Shakespeare or how to use Pythagoras theorem is somehow more urgent than knowing how to read a bank statement, because that implies the opposite to be true as well.

That the knowledge of how to manage money day to day is less than.

Is it? Because I know I’ve used money every day of my life since school. I wonder if Shakespeare did too.