Economics teacher pushes for personal finance classes

Teenagers do not know how to deal with money matters, according to an economics teacher who is working on introducing the subject of personal financial management in secondary school curriculums.

"Kids are leaving school without even knowing what a current account is or how to manage their finances," said Anna Coenen, who has been teaching economics at Stella Maris College, Gżira, for 20 years but says the subject is theoretical and has nothing to do with money management.

Ms Coenen took a year out to produce educational material for her Money Matters project, spurred by the fact that students did not understand the point of saving money, often due to peer and commercial pressure, and lived beyond their means.

"Banks push us. They approve loans we never asked for," she pointed out, wanting to guard naive teenagers against these situations.

"The older generations used to save but in a short time habits have changed due to a change in lifestyle and market pressure. The high saving ratio is dropping, with people being unable to afford it.

"In the past, there was hardly anything to buy; now there is everything and kids want it all! Young teenagers tend to spend."

With these lifestyle changes comes the need to make educational ones, according to the teacher.

Inspired by Nibud, the National Institute for Budgeting in the Netherlands, her efforts materialised into two booklets for 11- to 16-year-olds, and one for teachers, offering extra suggestions on how to go about imparting the subject.

The first booklet tackles issues such as pocket money, price consciousness and preparing small budgets while the other considers buying online, internet banking, hotels and travel and planning the future, raising awareness about the importance of comparing prices and fraud.

The idea has already been introduced in a pilot project at Stella Maris College in the form of a financial literacy course for Form 1 and 2 students as part of the curriculum in the last scholastic year. But Ms Coenen would like to go further, introducing it into other secondary schools.

"The subject is being neglected and the result is that young teens end up in debt," the teacher said, determined the do something about it. "We need to catch them young, even at primary-school age!"

Ms Coenen believes there could be repercussions if the matter were not taken seriously, with the young generations spiralling into personal debt, being up to their ears in loans and unable to get out of it.

She has approached banks and companies for sponsorship to print the booklets and distribute them among all schools to be used during personal and social development classes, the best way to reach all students, in her view.

"They liked the project but the funds were not forthcoming," she said, pointing out she had received good feedback from the government and the Curia. The booklets are still in photocopy format.

From her experience, despite the little students know about money matters, the boys have shown an interest in the subject and enjoyed learning how to open an account.

"Some kids started getting pocket money when they explained to their parents what they were learning and others were allowed to try writing out cheques," she pointed out.

"We assume that families will teach their children these things but many have their own problems and are not managing their own money, let alone passing on good financial habits."