Finance education plan ‘too ambitious’
Ticks have replaced crosses, and ‘‘achieved’’ has replaced ‘‘not achieved’’ for the Commission for Financial Capability’s money programme for school children.
The commission, which has been rocked with accusations of staff bullying, was awarded $10.2 million of taxpayer money in May 2017 to develop financial education resources for schools, and train teachers to deliver it.
It was part of an ambitious project by former commerce and consumer affairs minister Jacqui Dean – to lift the nation’s money smarts by ensuring children leave school equipped with financial knowledge and skills.
But the commission’s Sorted in Schools programme was not getting top marks, the 2017/18 annual report shows.
It scored ‘‘not achieved’’ on four of the five Sorted in Schools targets agreed with MBIE, and ‘‘partially achieved’’ for the last.
The project had not reached the 55,000 year 9 and 10 students hoped for, and neither were the Sorted in Schools materials available to the 15,000 teachers targeted.
The lack of visible progress was being contrasted by people in the money education sector with the rollout of the privately-developed Banqer money software system, which schools fund through donations from parents.
But Nick Thompson, hired in October as the commission’s director of learning, believes those early Sorted in Schools targets were too ambitious.
‘‘I think people really underestimated how difficult a programme like this is,’’ he said.
‘‘I think they thought they would be further down the line with the project development.’’
Thompson thinks initial planning assumed the financial education materials the commission already had could be quickly adapted for use in schools.
But the commission appears to have lacked a specialist in developing education programmes before Thompson.
‘‘I think what the commission needed to do was have the right skills and capabilities to deliver the programme,’’ he said.
Thompson joined from Competenz, which develops apprenticeship schemes for trades ranging from butchery to mechanical engineering.
In contrast to Banqer’s immersive gameplay-style programme, the Sorted in Schools materials are designed for teachers to deliver in a traditional lesson format.
Pilots have now been completed, and work begun on developing a Sorted in Schools programme for Ma¯ ori immersion schools.
New goals had been set for Sorted in Schools, and, Thompson said: ‘‘All of our (targets) we are measuring tracking beautifully.’’
Immediately prior to his arrival, the programme was being overseen by a temporary manager.
The commission has had a high level of staff turnover, and accusations of bullying of staff by retirement commissioner Diane Maxwell are being investigated by the State Services Commission.
Thompson was recruited by Maxwell, whom he described as passionate about financial education in schools, and inspiring with her vision for what could be achieved.
‘‘The only way we can fundamentally change financial capability is to start as early as possible in schools,’’ he said.
His short time has produced a few emotional moments, such as when one Porirua College student told him why she was keen on money lessons.
‘‘She said ‘this is going to help me educate Mum and Dad to have a budget for food so we will not run out of food this week’,’’ he said.
‘‘It made me realise how powerful the programme could be.’’
Commission spokeswoman Estelle Sarney said the next update to the minister would show the programme was ‘‘on track’’ to meet targets in areas including trialling and implementing learning packages, making teaching materials available to schools, and getting independent evaluations on whether Sorted in Schools pilots improved students’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviour with money.
There are 548 schools on the commission’s target list, and 267 have already registered their interest. There were also 79 primary and intermediate schools that had registered their interest too. are