Financial education for the whole country

One of the very, very few positive aspects of this biting recession is how many people are becoming educated about financial matters.

Taking the bus from Kidlington to Oxford yesterday, I sat behind four teenage girls, who were loudly talking about the latest gadgets they hoped to get cheaper in the sales.

No surprise there: but they then had a detailed discussion about what shops were in administration, being able to name all of them including Whittards (which has now been bought by Epic) and The Officers Club.

Once the business news was seen as the preserve of City boys in red races driving flash cars around.

It has been only recently that people have made connections between problems in the City of London and job losses in their company.

This is because of the lack of financial education in most schools. How many people, a year ago, would know what the FTSE was, let alone follow it?

Now Robert Peston is the most well known face on the BBC ten o clock news, and financial headlines are on the front pages four days out of five.

People know that their fate is linked to the decisions of Alistair Darling, the Bank of England and banks.

A good Government would ignore Sir Jim Roses' daft primary education reforms and have half an hour a week of financial education, explaining how events in the City affect us and how we can avoid financial problems.

This would counteract the propaganda from banks and doorstep loan merchants preying on the poorest.