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02 October 2006
The government should do more to educate people in the type of maths required to manage finances, according to the ifs School of Finance.
It was responding to statistics yesterday from analysts Datamonitor that the average Briton is £3,000 in debt, twice the west European average.
Anne Kiem, head of external affairs at the school, said: "Whilst the government has taken some welcome steps to address over-indebtedness in the UK, much more remains to be done."
She said government reliance on functional maths from 2008 would not be the answer because "early indications suggest this will be incredibly basic information, amounting to less than a handful of hours study over a number of years – insufficient to make any impact on financial education or levels of debt in the UK".
"Financial education should be taught as a standalone subject in secondary schools as a crucial life skill," she continued. The comments come after recent surveys showed that young people are particularly prone to getting into debt.
Figures from uSwitch showed 18 per cent of young people only pay the minimum balance on their credit cards, compared with 11 per cent overall, while FSA statistics showed 29 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds did not know how to arrange a household budget.
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