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New Aussie High School Course Will Finally Teach Kids How To Budget In The Adult World

New Aussie High School Course Will Finally Teach Kids How To Budget In The Adult World

Instead of SohCahToa, they'll learn about taxes, keeping accounts, analysing phone contracts and your payslip.

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie

Year 11 and 12 students in New South Wales will finally be taught how to budget when they get into the big, wide world.

The high school curriculum has long been criticised for not preparing young people for life lessons and instead focusing on the tried and true maths topics.

The new course will help students understand taxes, how to do a budget, keep accounts, shopping, analyse a mobile phone contract and read a payslip.

Don't get us wrong, trigonometry, algebra and complex equations have their time and place, but if you have no clue how to make sure you can handle your finances then no amount of SohCahToa will save you.

The subject will be called Numeracy and will count towards the HSC, however will be a category B course, meaning it won't contribute to an ATAR (Australian Tertiary Entrance Rank) score.

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell is excited at the idea of students getting real-world lessons that will help them once they leave high school.

PA

"We've seen increased engagement particularly from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, students in rural and remote areas and students studying vocational education and training courses," she said.

The course has come about after a review into the state's education found there were loads of students who were struggling with or couldn't care less about maths.

But, the NSW Department of Education's Centre for Education Statistics and Evaluation discovered this new Numeracy course made students a bit more engaged in numbers.

Their base-level results also started to improve when they were able to translate maths into real-world scenarios like making a budget or doing taxes.

Maths participation jumped up to 11 per cent for students studying vocational education and training courses after doing the Numeracy course.

It was also up to eight per cent for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

Not only have their scores increased, but they have a renewed confidence in tackling maths when they might have avoided it altogether.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Australia