Debt management ‘should be taught’

Individuals should learn financial planning at school to prepare them for the outside world, one expert has suggested.

Laith Khalaf, pensions analyst at investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown, said that everybody should be properly informed on how to save money for the future.

“Whether we like it or not people have to be responsible for their own retirement and a lot of the time they are doing that blind without the knowledge they need to do that,” he said.

Mr Khalif’s comments come after HSBC’s fifth annual future of retirement study called It’s Time to Prepare was published on June 10th.

It revealed that 56 per cent of those surveyed had never received financial education of any kind.

One-third of people felt ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ insecure about their retirement plans and 13 per cent had made no allowances for when they leave work at all.

The results also found that 76 per cent did not know what income would be available once they retire.

By Francis Finch