Should children be taught life skills at school?

In its weekly voxpop, the Advertiser found out what life skills people think children should be taught at school.

Transcript

00:00Yeah, I think that they should teach children about mortgages, interest rates and things

00:12like that, maths that's going to help them through life, credit cards and stuff like

00:17that, about not getting into debt and managing finances when they get a house of their own,

00:22rent, mortgage, stuff like that.

00:24Well, I think it would be a really good idea if children learnt about the financial side

00:29of life. I knew that wasn't taught when I was at school and I think it would be really

00:35useful for them to know how to get a mortgage, how you work out a budget, how much, you know,

00:44all the incoming bills can be, you know, all the sidelines to buying a car, all that sort

00:51of thing would help all children for the future. I think that would be good for them

00:57and they'd enjoy it as well.

00:59I think they should be taught about mathematics which is relevant to their lives, so interest,

01:04how to calculate when you pay your tax, all those sorts of things. I think English and

01:08all of those should be focused around interview skills, skills around communication and those

01:13sorts of things, as well as presentation skills because those are the sort of things you're

01:16going to use in the rest of your life.

01:19I think they should learn how to actually communicate with people and how to speak to

01:24people and start teaching them some manners as well because there's a lot of young children

01:29now, all they do is press buttons, they don't interact, they don't know how to make conversation

01:35or create a conversation and I just think technology is good but sometimes you need

01:41the basic skills as well to start things off and they should be teaching them more basic skills.

01:47I think children these days are given so many things they've got to do, they should be able

01:56to have some fun and things like relationships and sort of helping each other is just so

02:07important and so less on the academic and more on the learning through play and that's

02:21what I think but as for, I mean if you can get on with other people then you can go a

02:29long way in life and I think perhaps that's the most important thing.