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I am 21 years old and I cannot sew. I cannot fix a leaky tap and up until a couple of years ago when I began burying my head in cookery books, I had not got the faintest idea what on earth I was doing in the kitchen.
Basically, all the stuff that used to come under the big umbrella heading of 'Home Economics' is now a distant memory for many and for girls and boys my age- well I will be surprised if many of us go on to live grown up lives where we all have to look after ourselves and manage a meal without using a telephone.
The closest we ever got to Home Economics at my school was a Design Technology subject called Food Preparation in which we learned how to make pizza from scratch. Great stuff. Now I am ready to face the world.
But what did we learn at school? Ah yes, statistics… and algebra. And let us not forget, of course, the in depth yet rather mind numbing analysis of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, which basically ruined any chance for a love of period fiction novels to blossom within me.
The most worrying thing for me is the total lack of understanding I had when I left school, of anything financial. I did not know what savings rates were or interest rates or ISAs or how to get a mortgage or even how to do something as simple as paying a bill.
Credit is available everywhere these days to practically anyone. You can get a credit card at 18 and run up debt that you can not pay and most people get into trouble this way not through ignorance. We were never told anything that we could ignore. We were never told anything at all.
My advice to young people, get swotted up on all things financial; my advice to parents, educate your children- because the schools won’t.
Basically, all the stuff that used to come under the big umbrella heading of 'Home Economics' is now a distant memory for many and for girls and boys my age- well I will be surprised if many of us go on to live grown up lives where we all have to look after ourselves and manage a meal without using a telephone.
The closest we ever got to Home Economics at my school was a Design Technology subject called Food Preparation in which we learned how to make pizza from scratch. Great stuff. Now I am ready to face the world.
But what did we learn at school? Ah yes, statistics… and algebra. And let us not forget, of course, the in depth yet rather mind numbing analysis of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, which basically ruined any chance for a love of period fiction novels to blossom within me.
The most worrying thing for me is the total lack of understanding I had when I left school, of anything financial. I did not know what savings rates were or interest rates or ISAs or how to get a mortgage or even how to do something as simple as paying a bill.
Credit is available everywhere these days to practically anyone. You can get a credit card at 18 and run up debt that you can not pay and most people get into trouble this way not through ignorance. We were never told anything that we could ignore. We were never told anything at all.
My advice to young people, get swotted up on all things financial; my advice to parents, educate your children- because the schools won’t.
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