Where is Financial Literacy Taught?
Children have 3 sources viz., home, school and TV to learn anything. Sadly none of these are providing even the basic education about money and then we keep complaining about inadequate awareness about money in our future citizens. Lets look at these in slightly larger detail.
Home : In an earlier post, we have talked about the need to talk money with children and this is rarely done even in the most of enlightened households. Parents do not want to trouble their kids about monetary information or they consider their children incapable to understand the subtleties of money and finance. Given that in many cases, the wife is not even aware of her husband’s investments, what to say about the kids?
School : Given the high emphasis on the 3 Rs, Reading, (w)Riting and (a)Rithmetic in our education system, there is a huge scope of integrating financial literacy in these components. But the high priests of our education system do not consider this important and the schools do not really care for their students becoming wise about money.
TV : Like the US, Indian kids are getting addicted to TV from the early ages. With the proliferation of children TV channels such as pogo, znimax, jetix, toon carton and chutti Tv (tamil), the addiction is likely to be deepened. Socially responsible channels can give a dose of money education via their various programs and I’m sure that enlightened financial institutions can sponsor these programs and create a cadre of young investors.
Is anybody listening?
