Barefoot Investor: Scott Pape’s mission to improve kids’ financial literacy with new TV series

Barefoot Investor Scott Pape is stepping up his campaign to improve the financial literacy of young Australians and it’s all documented in a new TV series.

Too many Australian children are reaching adulthood lacking the financial skills needed to get ahead in life.

This is one of the key findings from a national online survey run by News Corp to gauge Australians’ views on financial education.

The survey of almost 7000 Australians came ahead of Foxtel’s three-part documentary series, Scott Pape’s Money Movement, which starts on Wednesday night.

The series follows Pape as he strives to achieve five core aims of his Money Movement.

These include the implementation of a practical yearly money challenge in schools; showing primary schoolers the power of working, saving, spending and giving; showing high schoolers how to get a job and set up their savings “buckets”; a commitment to professional development financial education for teachers; and to kick the banks out of schools.

“The rich are getting much richer … while the young, and the poor … are mostly not getting anywhere … it seems to me that one of the most practical ways to at least try and balance out the scales of inequality is to teach kids the rules of the game,” Pape wrote in a recent newspaper column.

Scott Pape with students from St Columba's College. Picture: Essential BOYF Pty Ltd

Pape’s Money Movement campaign has resulted in the NSW government announcing plans to introduce a financial literacy challenge, the first of its kind in Australia. The pilot program is to be rolled out in Term Three.

The Victorian government is currently looking to bolster its financial literacy programs in schools following extensive lobbying by Pape, who has four young children.

A staggering 99 per cent of those surveyed backed Pape’s call to have money management taught in schools, with 89 per cent calling for lessons to begin in primary school.

Almost 95 per cent said they personally wished they had a better financial education in school.

Almost 97 per cent of survey respondents said too many Australians spent recklessly, which could be considered unsurprising given our heavy reliance on credit cards and popular buy now, pay later services like Afterpay and Zip.

Household debt hit a record high of more than $2.5 trillion at the end of December — an average of more than $257,000 per household, and representing more than 180 per cent of disposable income.

Scott Pape's Money Movement series begins on Foxtel this week.

Still, half of those surveyed said they were “good” with money, while 32 per cent said they were “okay”, but wished they had a better understanding of money.

More than half surveyed are looking to improve their financial prowess, with nearly 30 per cent trying to stick to a budget and just over 29 per cent following the guidance of Pape or another money expert. Less than 10 per cent said they were working with a financial adviser.

Pape’s push to get banks out of schools had strong support with more than 77 per cent saying agreeing school banking programs should be banned.

The Barefoot Investor Scott Pape at a high school in Sydney. Picture: Nick Wilson/Foxtel

In November last year, the Victorian government was the first to ban banks and financial institutions in schools, including the Commonwealth Bank’s 50-year-old school banking program, Dollarmites. Queensland implemented ban on banks in school in April.

This followed damning findings from the Royal Commission into the Banking and Financial Services industry last year.

An ASIC report found that school banking couldn’t be proven to improve savings behaviour and exposed young children to “sophisticated advertising and marketing tactics”.

Scott Pape’s Money Movement starts on Foxtel’s Lifestyle channel on Wednesday night, 8.30pm.

Originally published as Barefoot Investor: Scott Pape’s mission to improve kids’ financial literacy with new TV series