ファイナンシャルタイムズに以下のような記事がありました。なんでも、ファイナンシャルリテラシー教育を義務教育にしようという動きがあるようです。インターネット世代の子供たちは何でもクリック一つで買えてしまうので、早いうちからお金の使い方をしっかり身に付けさせておかないと大変なことになる、という考えのようです。
日本でも徐々に広まりつつあるようですが、義務教育のカリキュラムに取り込まないとなかなか浸透はしないでしょうね。もっとも、教えられる人がどれほどいるのかも重要だと思いますが。
日本の場合、現在の年金制度を考えると、英国よりも喫緊の課題であるような気がします（英国のデータを知らないので、かなり推測ですが）。
Call for compulsory lessons in finance
By Jon Boone, Education Correspondent
Published: February 6 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 6 2007 02:00
National curriculum reforms designed to encourage school pupils to develop “life skills” will do little to raise worryingly low levels of financial literacy among young people, an education charity has warned.
Shakespeare, the history of the slave trade and healthy cooking classes were all decreed compulsory by Alan Johnson, the education secretary, yesterday but practical lessons in personal finance, budgeting and mortgages will remain voluntary.
Gavin Shreeve, chief executive of the IFS School of Finance charity, said: “If you don’t make something structured and compulsory it just won’t happen. And that’s a tragedy because if you look into the cause of so many social problems in our society it nearly always comes down to a fundamental mismanagement of money.”
The new modules published by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority advise schools how to teach economic concepts such as competition and price efficiency, as well as practical lessons on interest rates, money management and credit cards. However, the QCA said the subject should be taught in the personal, social and health education strand of the curriculum, which schools are not legally obliged to follow.
The Personal Finance Education Group, a national charity, said it welcomed the fact that personal finance had been given a higher profile, but “would have preferred it to be part of the statutory curriculum”.
A recent survey of 18- to 40-year-olds carried out by the Financial Services Authority uncovered widespread ignorance about basic financial matters.
Yesterday, Mr Johnson said new technology had made it all the more important for young people to understand personal finance. “The ‘Ebay generation’ is the first to be able to buy and sell anything, any time, anywhere, at the touch of a button,” he said. “It’s more important than ever that today’s school pupils understand how to manage the benefits, responsibilities and risks of making, borrowing and spending money.”
George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, has said all school pupils should learn about personal finance but has not said whether the Conservatives would make it compulsory. Yesterday, David Willetts, shadow education secretary, said there was a questionmark over whether there were enough trained teachers to deliver personal finance lessons.
The QCA review of the secondary curriculum will run until the end of April, with changes taking effect in schools from autumn 2008.
Mr Johnson said he would use his powers to protect traditional “classic” subject areas, such as Shakespeare’s plays and works by authors such as Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. The two world wars, the Holocaust and the slave trade will be compulsory in history lessons.
Schools will also get more freedom to teach “more economically useful languages such as Mandarin and Urdu” rather than traditional European languages. The National Centre for Languages welcomed the greater scope, but said there was no evidence that European languages were less economically important than any other.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/87cb1e0c-b586-11db-a5a5-0000779e2340.html
ちなみに、上の話とは関係ありませんが、フランスの投資銀行BNPパリバが将来のデリバティブの担い手を育てるために、大学にお金を出すそうです。これもある意味、上級ファイナンシャルリテラシー教育でしょうか。
ちょっと違いますね、、、
BNP Paribas to fund academic chair
By Adam Jones in Paris
Published: February 6 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 6 2007 02:00
BNP Paribas is sponsoring the creation of a university chair in financial mathematics in a move that highlights the academic foundations of France’s success in the derivatives industry.
The French bank has signed an agreement with the Ecole Centrale Paris – one of the grandes écoles that sit at the pinnacle of the French higher education system – under which it will pay €300,000 ($389,000) annually for an initial period of five years in order to support a new teaching and research team.
Mathematics graduates and postgraduates are sought after by the derivatives departments of global banking groups.
Like its French rival Société Générale, BNP Paribas tapped the domestic supply of talented mathematicians as it built a leading position in the global derivatives industry.
Stéphane Tyc, BNP Paribas’s head of quantitative research for equity and commodity derivatives, said that the bank hoped the relationship with the Ecole Centrale would allow it to continue hiring the best in France amid increased competition from US employers, which are also on recruiting drives.
“We are in a massive expansion and recruitment is a big issue for us,” he said.
“The hiring of French quants [industry shorthand for experts in structuring and trading derivatives] is a global market.”
Mr Tyc said that the new teaching and research team would seek to build on France’s current expertise in derivativespricing through work designed to focus more on proprietary trading and the evolving needs of hedge funds.
However, BNP Paribas would not have any preferential access to researchers’ findings.
“We are not trying to get ahead of anyone else [in terms of this research]. We are looking at turning out very good students, andperhaps getting the first look at hiring them,” said Mr Tyc.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/55f5ff5a-b586-11db-a5a5-0000779e2340.html
