by 
By Dr. Raphael Christopher
A Senior Member of EnuguBar
Payday loans. Failed finances. Increased global debt. Collapsed economy. Inflation. Deflation. Recessions.
Abba, the Swedish pop group in 1971 in their album – Arrival has a song aptly named: Money, Money, Money with appropriate lyrics.
What am they talking about? What am I talking about? I am talking about one of the single most important skill for every person on planet Earth has to have and every country has to have and manage if it and it’s citizens have a chance to survive and thrive.
What is this skill that I am referring to? It is the elementary ability to understand money and how to manage money and make good decisions about money.
It is no exaggeration to say that possession of this skill is vital to the survival and success of everyone in this planet Earth and thousands of years experiences in every civilisation and age and the rises and falls of empires supports my views.
Sadly, not many have woke up to this fundamental truth and consequently, generations and generations live and die below their abilities and their talents lies wasted, buried in the dust. The Earth all the poorer. This terrible cycle continues, unabated, with new generations caught in the grip of this vicious circle.
How can we break this? It is
quite simple – every country in the world urgently need to adopt a explicit government policy in education to start to teach money, money management and handling explicitly, as a stand-alone subject on its own to every student right from nursery school in a way that is appropriate to the age and developmental stages of life. Also, home schools, privately owned schools and higher education institutions needs to adopt this and make it one of their offerings on their prospectus!
Some would ask, and quite rightly so, why not teach this within the subject of Mathematics?
My answer is that as a mathematics teacher for many years – just because I love Maths – alongside the practice and profession of law – so many people including some of my dear readers, have been put off by the subject of Mathematics and very many people almost about 65% of the population according to recent estimates are put off by the subject of Mathematics and so associate anything within the subject of mathematics with negative experiences.
Let’s assume then we have 65million people in a country and 65% of them view mathematics negatively, you are talking about circa 42million people. Wow! That is a large number, isn’t it? Then let’s take it a little further. These 42 million people have 2 children each on average, and these children look up to their parents as their examples. Guess what? The parents are bound unconsciously and unknowingly to pass on to their children their negative attitude towards mathematics and voila! History repeats itself the vicious circle goes on and on and so on and so forth.
It is important to clarify the above statement by saying that it is also true that some parents who have a phobia about mathematics and who strongly dislikes mathematics, against all odds-do have children who go into Mathematics and science related vocations, but these are the exceptions and not the general rule.
Think about it – If we follow the logic the in a space of a generation, we would then have nearly 84 million people having a negative attitude towards mathematics and now you can see why for practical reasons, having money taught within the context of Mathematics is not a good idea. It may be logical but practically it has not succeeded as well as it should just because of the negative attitudes toward the subject of Mathematics.
Now, let look at the other side of why we should have money, money management and handling as a separate subject as a more practical and pragmatic solution as it enables everyone to make a
separation between the negative attitudes towards the study of mathematics and money – which everyone accepts they need and have no negative attitude towards money.
Back to Abba then, from the lyrics you can see that everyone needs money. Our society is built on money transactions. Everyone instinctively knows that money is important to their life if they want to make it in life.
Sadly the problem is that many do not know how to manage money or what money is actually. As a result, many are not taught how money works. How to manage money. How to make money work for you. How to live within your means and when to borrow and what to borrow and how much to borrow etc etc
The consequences is therefore very sad, with millions and millions are in debt due to making wrong decisions about money. Many are driven to suicides and crimes and suffer mental health problems due to their wrong decisions and misunderstanding of money and what money really is and how it works.
For example, many do not save. Many do not know about financial planning so when they get to old age, when they are not able to be productive or they fall ill, they suffer due to lack of money. If they realised that they needed to engage in financial planning when they were in their prime of life, their old age would be much sweeter for them instead of money worries and depending on the Government to look after them.
Not to talk of the financial burden they face by depending on their children who themselves are struggling.
Same pictures applies to nations and countries. Imagine people who don’t know about money running the government? You can easily see how and why many countries are suffering and their citizens negatively affected.
Can you see the seriousness and the gravity of the problem all over the world?
Yet- a simple solution is available.
What is this solution – it is to start to teach every child money, money management and handling from nursery schools and so when they come to secondary schools they would be financially literate and able to make good money decisions that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.
Even if they don’t finish school or drop out, at least they will have had the most important skill to help them succeed in life – good money, money management and handling skills.
If we have generations trained in this way from the get go, the entire world will be transformed within a few years and global economic crashes will be a thing of the past, borrowings and debts and debts servicings will be much reduced, the mental health of everyone would be forever improved and most Governments would not be spending billions in bailouts and the world bank would not need to give loans or stimuluses to countries because they would not need them anymore.
Since this is the impact this simple solution, which is not expensive, will potentially have on the whole world, do you not agree it is time to start teaching money, money management and handling skills subject right from nursery.
What can you do?
I have a few suggestions- lobby your Governments, lobby your representatives in Government, Senates, Houses of Assembly, lobby social media influencers, lobby leaders in every industry, lobby public offices all over the world to come together to get this policy implemented as soon as possible so we can help change, for the better, the destines of this generation and future generations unborn and change the destinies of every country in this world and save unnecessary sufferings for all. History will forever thank us for pioneering this global initiative and having this foresight!
