‘Inform, Educate and Inspire’ is a core part of our ethos at MPA. Over last few years, David McGovern has certainly been delivering on the ‘Educate’ part through an initiative set up by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII).
The CII has established the ‘My Personal Finance Skills’ programme, a pro bono initiative that delivers financial education workshops for schools and colleges across the UK. The sessions are delivered by ‘Education Champions’ – CII members who are happy to donate their time to help inform and educate young people on various areas of personal finance.
The workshops are provided free of charge to schools and cover elements of financial education that are relevant to the students’ life stage. Themes include:
- My future finances
- Staying safe from financial scams
- Understanding your first payslip
- Personal Finance Basics
- Moving on from school
The educational material provided has all been awarded the financial education Quality Mark and is supported by the Money Advice Service.
David has been involved in the programme since 2021 and has so far delivered 8 workshops. This has been done mainly on Teams or Google Meet initially due to Covid, and although schools are open for personal presentations, delivering the workshops digitally means you can cover over 500 pupils in one presentation as David did for Year 7 and Year 8 at Priory Community School Weston Super Mare.
David comments: “It is fantastic to see the CII working with schools to bring real world financial education to their students. It brings Maths to life and makes it relevant. I firmly believe that young people need to be more informed so they can ask the right questions and be aware the consequences of taking credit from companies using payment options through Klarna or getting free apps to play video games and be aware of the hidden costs.”
“Helping students understand the impact of interest rates for loans and knowing key differences between credit and debit help demystify financial jargon so they can make informed decisions and not be scared of money and understand basics of building an effective budget plan. I have enjoyed delivering a workshop on online safety. I think we are all guilty of not fully appreciating how much of our personal information we give away online and how this can lead us open to becoming a victim of fraud. This applies to everyone no matter what age although younger generation are more digital led the older generation who sometimes lack the skills to understand how easy it is for people to take their money. This is termed a scam but it’s out and out theft. UK Finance reported £1.2 billion was lost to fraud in UK for 2022.”
In addition to helping upskill young people, the CII also hope that giving children access to people working in Financial Services via the workshops will make them interested in a potential future career within the sector.
For more information about My Personal Finance Skills, please click HERE.
