In this section
Columnists
Offers for readers
Personal finance tools
The comment stream
Recent comments
- 1 of 25924
- ››
Editors choice
- 1 of 365
- ››
Personal finance news stream
Latest news
- Taxed to the max 1
- How different is Auckland from the rest of NZ? 43
- Amanda's Take Five for Friday 2
- Big bank brother is watching you 7
- Amanda's Take Five for Wednesday 7
- Quake claimants win in court 8
- Amanda's Take Five for Monday 2
- Amanda's Take Five for Monday 2
- Precious metals markets edgy 1
- Amanda's Take Five for Thursday 7
Most commented
- Treasury outlines deposit guarantee lessons 67
- How different is Auckland from the rest of NZ? 43
- How the RBNZ's OBR might work 34
- Quake claimants win in court 8
- New insurance basis 8
- Big bank brother is watching you 7
- Amanda's Take Five for Wednesday 7
- Amanda's Take Five for Thursday 7
- 'SFO decision no surprise' - Eric Watson 7
- Amanda's Take Five for Friday 6
Most viewed
- How different is Auckland from the rest of NZ? 43
- Taxed to the max 1
- Amanda's Take Five for Friday 2
- Quake claimants win in court 8
- New insurance basis 8
- NZ Super Fund bars Barrick 2
- Treasury outlines deposit guarantee lessons 67
- Kiwibank customers prominent in class action 2
- Child support redux and a $2.6 bln headache
- Amanda's Take Five for Thursday
Study finds that less than half of financial literacy tutors working with students have formal training; Commission signals need for proper teacher training.
Less than half of all teachers working in the area of financial literacy have formal training or qualifications in the area, according to research released today by the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income.
Commissioner Diana Crossan, in announcing a pilot programme aimed to give 15 teachers at Whitireia Polytechnic a higher education in personal finance, said there was an identified gap in the professional development of New Zealand tertiary teachers when it came to money matters.
Research, sponsored by Visa, found that just 47 percent of financial literacy tutors had received training or professional development, and what they had received was not exclusively linked to financial literacy.
Crossan said the knowledge gap signalled a problem that needed to be addressed if the country hoped to raise financial literacy levels.
Crossan said the pilot programme was first of its kind in New Zealand. If successful, the Commission would like to see similar training introduced to other tertiary education providers.
Visa New Zealand's Sean Preston said the partnership with the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income was a good fit.
“Financial literacy gives people choice, financial protection and enables them to be informed when making financial decisions. We are excited about our partnership with Whitireia Polytechnic and believe formal programmes such as this are a vital step toward achieving a more financially savvy New Zealand.”
To assess the effectiveness of the training, on-going evaluations will be done to measure any shifts in financial literacy in both students and tutors. Tutors who participate in the programme will be tasked with integrating what they learned into teaching programmes.
Related Topics
The full findings from the CMLRI's report can be found on their website www.financialliteracy.org.nz.
11 Comments
"To assess the effectiveness
"To assess the effectiveness of the training, on-going evaluations will be done to measure any shifts in financial literacy in both students and tutors"
The parasites will be watching closely for any sign Kiwi peasant teens are learning of the serious lifelong damage that debt will do to them!
Visa New Zealand's Sean
Visa New Zealand's Sean Preston said the partnership with the Commission for Financial Literacy and Retirement Income was a good fit.
Amanda does this partnership qualify as a Public-Private Patrnership and possibly deserve the negative overtones ascribed to such deals in this article?
Clearly there is a need for
Clearly there is a need for the govt and the parasites to involve themselves in education...this is a serious issue....allowing young Kiwi to discover how the corruption, fraud and credit drug pushing is eating away at their future, is to be avoided at all cost.
Isn't that true Mr Key!
So let's hear it for Crossan's call for 'teacher training' on this matter....otherwise NZ faces a future where too many Kiwi will know too much about the ongoing credit creating farce underpining the property speculation so beloved by so many in Parliament.
Left to teach finance, without the intervention and guidance by govt( the banks), the demand for credit and the property bubble (that fattens the pay packs of the bank bosses and ensures they stuff their gobs with bonuses too), will continue to trend downward.....we must stop this as soon as possible....right Mr Key!
If this is how things are I
If this is how things are I believe it's best to employ business people for teaching, no offense for the teachers. Practical and real time information can make a huge difference for the students.
Crosnan's whole basic ethos
Crosnan's whole basic ethos is fatally flawed; why would we teach teachers to pass on horseshit?
Just because folk pile up electronic indications of what they choose to think of as 'proxy', what is the guarantee that there will be any underwrite?
Where has Crosnan investigated the limits to growth, demographics vs energy, or indeed anything outside the dismal science?
To be fair, she would be in trouble if she turned to the Chief Science Adviser, if what I heard of his 'lecture' is indicative of his thinking. (He paid some lip-service to physical limits, I think he even mentioned Climate Change - but then off he went on 'economic growth'. You gotta wonder..... presumably those limits don't apply to the stuff we will need to 'buy', and there will be no contention......
I think the reason this is
I think the reason this is pushed is a part of blaming the borrowers for the financial crisis, and any 'imbalances' in the economy. People accept this rather more easily if they think all their country people are a bunch of scrounging economic illiterates. What better way to support that idea than to teach them that they are!!
Nothing to do with the ecology of course, but I think that on average people make sensible economic decisions given the prevailing economic information. Of course hardly anybody who borrowed money before the financial crisis excected a massive rise in unemployment. You see other things too, like Amanda pointing out that borrowing to own your own house is basically a sensible retirement strategy, and if you are afraid of getting sharked on the share markets its probably the best savings strategy going. That phenomenon is usually called 'housing speculation' or Kiwi's poor economic literacy about the housing market.
The Government will have
The Government will have SAVED us all by Christmas.
They will teach us all to become Financially literate.
Then they are going to start on the EU.
That will teach you to be sceptical.
Debt is good.
Debt is everything.
Growing yer debt is good for are seholes.
Understanding the product and
Understanding the product and understanding the numbers - Could we please start with financial literacy in Parliament. Then move down to all those cumbersome Govt agencies who don't understand privacy so how the hell are they going to understand financial literacy.
The power of numbers is extremely important:
Lesson One ! Something I taught my kids many years ago - generational hand me down from Scotland.
Take a simple chess board 64 squares. Place a dollar on the first square and double the amount you will place in square 2 so it will be $2 then simply keep doubling the amount for the next square and so on until you reach the 64th square. How much money will you have by the time you get to the 64th square?
Look forward to seeing your answers !!!!
Prof Al Bartlett - I think it
Prof Al Bartlett - I think it was he - used to use 'grains of wheat'. The answer was: more wheat on the last square, than has ever been grown.
Do it with money, and it quickly becomes worthless.
I well remember an old gent touring the schools on behalf of the Post Office Savings Bank. Your shilling would turn into millions of pounds! He probably believed it too......
PDK - my G-father taught us
PDK - my G-father taught us using sheep. We taught our kids the effects but also added in interest and inflation components etc and made it more complicated.
I would be happy that many
I would be happy that many financial teachers aren't preprogrammed by existing State Approved methods. What would be more useful is that they have experience (a) running a business, and (b) minimum 6 month experience trading in financal instruments, and (c) a basic but sollid of understanding 101 level terms and functions.
You don't need intense post-grad skills to teach financial basics. What you need is the ability to present the topic in a sensible manner AND the skill to separate the effective wheat from the theoretical chaff. Formal qualifications excelling in the latter.