Young in deprived areas to get financial education

The Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg) announced a new partnership with information services company Experian, which it said will help it rapidly expand a financial education programme already running in some schools.

The charity, which has been among those campaigning for financial education to be placed on the national curriculum, said 20 more schools in some of the most financially disadvantaged areas will be transformed into centres of excellence in financial education.

It said Experian will fund the development of the schools, making them “beacons of best practice” in teaching young people about how to manage their money.

The schools taking part will be in Hull, Manchester, London, Nottingham, Bristol and Middlesbrough.

Schools will be targeted by Experian using its own bank of information about areas where people are more likely to have lower levels of financial education.

It will look at, for example, areas where there are higher concentrations of people with low credit scores or who do not have access to a bank account.

Pfeg believes financial education is a “crucial” life skill that everyone should be able to have access to, and it provides free support, advice and resources to people involved in teaching young people about money.

The charity is in the process of selecting schools to work with, and said its plans have already generated a lot of interest.

The schools which take part in the three-year programme will be required to pass the information on to clusters of other schools in their area, making the project even more widespread.

The charity’s programme has been focused on England but it aims to eventually step up the project across the UK.

Some 39 schools have already become centres of excellence as part of the programme.

MoneySavingExpert.com, which has also been strongly campaigning for more financial awareness, found in a report last month that a “disgraceful” lack of financial education is costing the UK around £3.4 billion a year.

It said people with better financial skills would plan their retirement effectively, boost their job prospects, steer clear of excessive debt and spend cash more wisely.