Yet another year goes by and still nothing changes.

If the term, “A Trap for young Players” ever had any meaning, then it soon will for the 100,000 or so Australian High School graduates about to join the real world of life after school.

During the course of the first few years after school the majority of these young adults will fall into financial traps that will impact the rest of their lives in a negative way. Some of these traps will come in the form of well-trained, highly practiced smooth operators who play on their prey’s naivety. Other traps will be brought on by social expectations and perceived peer group pressure.

We all know (experience tells us) that the majority of these school graduates will not reach retirement age in a desirable financial position. This is a tragedy because there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this should not be the case. We all know that anyone could become wealthy by retirement age after 40 years of consistent work and sensible management of their finances. Unfortunately, the fact remains that only a small percentage of the population manages to achieve this outcome.

One of the major contributing factors to this sad state of affairs must be the lack of financial education delivered in schools. During the 12 or so years in the education system, almost nothing of any real practical use was taught, demonstrated or presented to these graduating students. In fact, everyone I talk to tells me that they learnt nothing about money at school!

There are two facets to financial education and both seem to have either been neglected or are completely missing. They are:

1. Teaching the benefits of being good managers of money.
2. Teaching how to be good managers of money.

Without any doubt, these two would have to be among the most important life skills every human being should master.

One of the reasons for the lack of effective financial education in schools is quite likely a direct result of a lack of available curriculum and teacher expertise in this field. After being employed as a secondary school teacher for over 20 years I am pretty sure that very few teachers would actually know what to teach when it comes to the topic of managing money. The small percentage of the population who actually have achieved mastery over their financial destiny would most likely be people in the business sector and not those employed by the various education bodies around the country. Is it any wonder then that every year we have another graduation of financial lambs ready for the slaughter?

By the time they are in their 40’s most adults have learnt what NOT to do with money. Changing directions however can be very difficult and with over 20 or more years gone, the damage done by years of making mistakes can be very hard to recover from. Often a degree of panic sets in and some people make really crazy and desperate financial choices without getting sound advice and this just compounds their problems.

After decades of producing graduates with little financial literacy our education system needs to make some drastic changes. Not only do our school students need to be taught the basic necessary skills of managing money, but most adults would also benefit from a course in financial management as well. I believe that regular courses should be offered after hours in schools or TAFE colleges to allow adults to learn the skills of money management that were not taught when they were younger. As a result of this I have developed a Cash-Flow Management course based around the principles embodied in my Simply Budgets software. This course has proven to be very helpful to those who have already participated and I have become more and more convinced of the need for courses like this to be run around the country and made available to all who want to make a change for the better with their finances. In 2005 I have run this course in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane. In 2006 I will re-visit these cities adding Adelaide to the list as well. Regional centres will be in mind as well depending on demand.

It is obvious that our education authorities need to re-vamp their curriculum to include financial literacy and those called upon to develop and deliver these courses may well need to be drawn from outside the education systems themselves. With so much at stake this situation is not something that should be allowed to go on any longer. It is time that those in authority actually sat down and planned to address this real-life issue that should be taught in schools to both our youth and adults alike.
 

If you want to find out more about the CashFlow Coaching courses Click Here.